Study: Louisiana Has 3rd Highest Number Of Inappropriate Student-Teacher Relationships

A new report says Louisiana has the third-highest instances among the 50 states of inappropriate relationships between teachers and their students.

781 of these inappropriate relationships were discovered in 2014, but Louisiana had 23 of that total, according to Terry Abbott, the former chief of the U.S. Department of Education but who now heads up Drive West Communications.

Alabama and Kentucky had the most.

According to Abbott, coaches are responsible for the majority of inappropriate student-teacher relationships; 157 of the overall number in 2014 were coaches, he said. Thirty days into 2015, Abbott said already there were 30 reports of coaches having such relationships with a student.

Abbott blames the widespread of use of social media and smartphones, which give teachers the ability to contact students in ways that were not possible in the past.