A teacher from a Catholic private school in New Orleans has been taken into custody over suspicions of an inappropriate relationship with a student.
Teddi Page was arrested on Thursday, February 5, for allegedly engaging in an intimate relationship with a student at the Academy of the Sacred Heart. The 29-year-old educator joined the school the previous August to teach biology.
According to a police affidavit acquired by The Times-Picayune, authorities from the New Orleans Police Department were alerted by the school’s principal after a parent reported potential sexual contact between Page and her child.
The affidavit details that ‘personal and intimate’ discussions occurred over a two-month span between Page and a 17-year-old student, which allegedly evolved into a physical relationship.
Page is alleged to have engaged in kissing and sexual activities with the student both in the student’s car and at her apartment. The student’s mother, noticing behavioral changes in her daughter, checked her social media accounts.
She reportedly found messages and photographs on her daughter’s accounts showing the two kissing and unclothed. The mother took this evidence to the principal on February 2, leading to Page being dismissed and escorted from the school premises.
Page’s bond has been set at $15,000, and she is scheduled to appear at the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court on Friday, February 13.
Under Louisiana Law, any sexual activity between an educator and a student is illegal if “an educator has sexual intercourse with a person who is seventeen years of age or older, but less than twenty-one years of age, where there is an age difference of greater than four years between the two persons, when the victim is not the spouse of the offender and is a student at the school where the educator is assigned, employed, or working at the time of the offense.”
The alleged physical interactions reportedly started in November, after the student turned 18. A social media user claiming to be Page’s relative has voiced online that Page “does not deserve to be portrayed as a paedophile or sex offender,” asserting that “the situation has been completely misrepresented.”
The Head of School at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, Gretchen Zibilich Kane, informed The Times-Picayune that the school performs comprehensive background and reference checks, all of which Page passed. Kane stated, “We are supporting the student and her family who have come forward and are providing resources and counseling for our students who may be upset about these developments.”
Additional comments have been sought from the Academy of Sacred Heart.