(JTA) — Israel’s Education Ministry has initiated disciplinary action against a female high school teacher who admitted to sleeping with a teenage male student.
The teacher was not indicted, as police and the prosecution service determined last year that they had no evidence she broke the law. But the ministry initiated proceedings against her that may result in her permanent dismissal and voiding of any state-recognized teaching certificate, Ynet reported Friday.
The teacher and the student from a school in southern Israel had the affair two years ago, when she was 28 and he was 16, Ynet reported. Neither the school nor the teacher have been named by the Israel media. The teacher had been the boy’s homeroom teacher two year prior to the affair.
Michael Buskila, the teacher’s lawyer, said she regrets having sex with the student but insisted that she did not “violate disciplinary rules” because she was not his homeroom teacher at the time of the affair.
The disciplinary action revealed that police and prosecutors had text messages that suggested a romantic and sexual relationship between the teacher and the 10th–grader, even though authorities cited the absence of evidence in deciding not to indict.
One message from the teacher to the student, who attended her class when he was in eighth grade, read “If you end up having time come over before three, I’m in bed.”
The two had “full intercourse,” according to the disciplinary committee reviewing action against the teacher, who was married at the time of her affair.
She also wrote “I love you, my love knows no bounds” and “Nothing is worth ruining our relationship.” In another message, she wrote “I’m in love with every part of you, each and every centimeter, actually.”
Last year, a 36-year-old male teacher from Herzliya was indicted for statutory rape for allegedly having consensual sex with a 16-year-old female student.
In 2013, a Haifa court convicted a 50-year-old female teacher of sexual abuse charges who admitted to having consensual sexual relations with a 15-year-old female student.
