Ramsey Hinkle, a 32-year-old former teacher from Clinton, Iowa, has been given two years of probation after she was charged with sending nude photos to an underage student. Hinkle officially pled guilty to sexual exploitation by a school employee.
According to Clinton County District Court records, in addition to probation, Hinkle was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and was ordered to register as a sex offender. Addtionally, Hinkle must follow any recommended after-care treatment and pay the fee of $1,500 associated with the program.
Court records indicate that Hinkle admitted to police that she sent naked photos to a 17-year-old boy who was a student at Central DeWitt High School between November and December 2015.
Additionally, when interviewed by investigators, the teen said that while the emails exchanged between the two “were sexual in nature”, he claimed that they did not have sex because “he was too nervous to follow through on the idea”, according to WQAD 8.
Hinkle is just the latest in a string of school officials or teachers that have been charged with alleged sex-related crimes in recent years.
Since the beginning of 2019 alone, a handful of teachers have been arrested on similar charges, including Beulah High School teacher Kelsie Schmidt in North Dakota, Rancocas Valley Regional High School teacher Alexandra Reiner in New Jersey, and 50-year-old Florida substitute teacher Angela Jean Stanton in Florida.
As for why there has been such a significant increase in instances of teachers having inappropriate relationships with students, researchers believe that technology is to blame.
According to a report from the Texas Education Association, smartphones make easy for teachers to privately text and talk with students and also make it possible for teachers and students to share explicit images.
That is all the information that is available at this time. This article will be updated with new and relevant information should it become available. If there is anything that we missed, please reach out to editor@teamcoed.com.
