Brooklyn Teacher Charged In Latest Alleged Incident Of Student Sex Abuse
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Another New York City school teacher has been arrested for allegedly inappropriately touching a female student in Brooklyn.
Authorities said Esran Boothe, a 49-year-old health and gym teacher at the Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment, has been charged with both forcible touching and sexual abuse following accusations from a 16-year-old girl.
Boothe has worked in the New York City school system for 8 years, 1010 WINS' Sonia Rincon reported.
1010 WINS' Sonia Rincon Hears From Some Of Boothe's Students
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A number of his students told Rincon that Boothe is the last person they would imagine to do anything inappropriate.
"He don't look like the type to do that,"one student said.
"He never said nothing sexual to none of the kids," another student said.
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Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott released a statement saying "Anyone who violates the trust of students and families doesn't deserve to work in the system and will be removed."
Meanwhile, startling figures from the city's Department of Education show that 14 other school employees have been arrested in just three months.
The number of arrests have been staggering for parents, especially considering that only 13 education department staffers were arrested in all of 2011.
But in the past month alone, at least six DOE staffers have been charged with crimes and since the beginning of this year, more than a dozen have been arrested.
"Rage. Rage that our children are exposed, could be exposed to situations like that," said grandparent Elaine Cohen.
Walcott has previously called the cases "totally unacceptable" and said in the wake of the arrests, he's reviewed close to 250 educator files.
"I terminated four individuals as a result of this review and I'll move forward to terminate four more on top of that to make sure that we get them not only out of the classroom, but out of the system all together," he said.
A school aide at P.S. 87 on the Upper West Side is just one of the latest DOE staffers to be arrested. It turns out he'd been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a student before, but he'd only gotten a verbal warning.
"I'm glad they got him," said parent Susan Illman.
The Department of Education is also creating a disciplinary unit to make sure employees get more than just a verbal warning if they deserve it.
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