NBCi
July 31, 2007
http://www.nbc5i.com/news/13766668/detail.html
Dallas — Dallas police said a Dallas private school teacher was fired and then arrested after a student claimed to have had an inappropriate relationship with a teacher.
A 17-year-old girl told police in June that she had a sexual relationship with David B. Novinski, 35, one of her male teachers at the Ursuline Academy of Dallas all-girl Catholic prep school on Walnut Hill Lane near Inwood Road. School President Margaret Ann Moser said school officials acted quickly.
"We suspended the individual and he is no longer in our employment," she said.
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Police said a 17-year-old is old enough to consent to sex with an adult, but Texas law criminalizes sex between students and teachers regardless of age.
"This new law says if you're a student and the person you're having sex with is a teacher or works in that school, then that is against the law," former prosecutor Toby Shook said. "It's an improper relationship and it's a second-degree felony."
Dallas police sexual assault detectives said they arrested Novinski and booked him into the Lew Sterrett Justice Center on the charge of inappropriate relationship with a student.
The school investigated the incident and sent letters to parents and students asking for information.
"The core of our mission is the care and concern of our students and that's why this is really heartbreaking for us," Moser said.
School policy requires background checks on all employees, which is why some administrators are stunned.
"I don't think there's anything more devastating than this, and I mean that," Moser said.
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