US News

Students leave district as teachers defend molester

Enrollment appears to be nosediving in a Michigan school district where several teachers publicly supported a former colleague who admitted having sex with a middle school student.

The student body count in the West Branch-Rose City district, in northeast Michigan is down unofficially some 87 students following a tumultuous summer in which angry parents blasted seven teachers for writing letters in support of former teacher Neal Erickson. The letters urged a judge to be lenient in sentencing Erickson, who admitted to sexual misconduct with an underage, male student from 2006 to 2009. When the school board declined to take action against the teachers, many parents vowed to pull their kids out of the public schools, which have a total enrollment of just over 2,000.

“I can’t speculate as to why the students have left, but there were certainly parents who vocalized that they were pulling their children out of school because of the teacher’s support,” West Branch-Rose City School Superintendent Daniel Cwayna told FoxNews.com. “We addressed the issue as best we could without infringing upon the teacher’s first amendment rights. There’s only so much we can do.”

Neal EricksonFox News/Michigan Dept. of Corrections

Lower enrollment will cost the district under the state’s funding formula. And it could get even worse, if other parents simply opt to keep their kids home on Sept. 25, when the official headcount is carried out. The school district stands to lose as much as $600,000 in state funding.

“It’s absolutely appalling, these … teachers who wrote the letters. How someone can support a child molester … I don’t understand,” Sam Cottle, a local resident with relatives who work in the school district, said in an article published by EAGnews “None of these people have written a letter of support for the mom, dad, or son. What does that tell you?”

Read more at Fox News