[kusozcom]

A former Laurens County teacher was charged with having sex with a teenage boy over several months in 2005, authorities said Monday.

Karen Robbins, 49, was arrested over the weekend and charged with three counts each of criminal sexual conduct with a minor and committing a lewd act on a child. The sex occurred with a 15-year-old in her car and twice at her home between September and November 2005, according to arrest warrants.
Robbins was a private school teacher at the time and officials said the accusations did not involve one of her students. Police said they began investigating after school officials turned over letters found at Bell Street Middle School, where Robbins worked during the 2006-2007 school year.

Messages left at a telephone listing for a Karen Robbins in Clinton and with the county public defender’s office were not immediately returned.

Robbins is the third Laurens County teacher to be charged in the last year and a half with having sex with a minor.
Earlier this month, Allena Ward, also a former Bell Street Middle teacher, pleaded guilty to having sex with five teenage boys, some of them students where she taught. Wendie Ann Schweikert, a former elementary school teacher in Laurens County, was sentenced in June to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with an 11-year-old student. Ward has not yet been sentenced.

“You’re concerned as a parent. You’re concerned as a citizen and concerned as a prosecutor that these events keep being uncovered,” said solicitor Jerry Peace, who prosecuted both Ward and Schweikert.

The now-17-year-old boy in Robbins’ case, a former student at Bell Street Middle, is cooperating with authorities, Peace said.
Robbins was an elementary special education teacher for the private Thornwell Home for Children when the alleged incidents occurred. She taught at the Presbyterian-affiliated residential campus in Clinton from January 1995 to May 2006, said Thornwell president Robert “Skip” Stansell.

“We were just stunned. I don’t think anybody could see this coming,” he said of Robbins’ arrest. “Karen was a trusted member of our academic faculty while she was with us.”
Stansell said Robbins left Thornwell to pursue other opportunities with the local public school district and he had no idea of the criminal charges.

“We are saddened that some child is involved,” he said. “But we do not think any of our children were involved.”
Robbins taught seventh-grade special education at Bell Street Middle the previous academic year and chose not to renew her contract, said Laurens District 56 Superintendent Wayne Brazell. He would only say her departure was by “mutual agreement.”
“There was not any indication there were problems at the school” while she worked there, Brazell said.

The district will step up employee orientation and oversight, he said. Background and reference checks for Robbins raised no concerns, he said.

“In many of these cases there are no red flags. That’s what’s so scary,” he said.

He also has questioned why Laurens County has had a spate of teachers arrested. “I’ve really thought about this long and hard, but I don’t see anything at all that would single this county out for these kinds of situations. It’s just unfortunate,” Robbins said.

Clinton Police Chief John Thomas said he asked the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to investigate Robbins after receiving the information from the public school district.Robbins was released from jail on a $90,000 bail.

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