Jamie Bailey Pope, a 38-year-old teacher in Leake County, Mississippi, has been arrested and charged with sexual battery for allegedly having illegal sexual contact with an underage 16-year-old student.
According to the Leake County Sheriff’s Office, the investigation into the allegations against Pope began in late April when Leake County Superintendent of Education Billy Mack Wilbanks received a complaint about the Leake Central High School teacher’s aide.
An investigation led authorities to the conclusion that Pope’s illegal sexual relationship with the 16-year-old has been occurring since July 2018.
Following her arrest on Tuesday, May 14, Pope was officially charged with one count of sexual battery of a vulnerable person.
Pope is just one of many education officials to be arrested and charged for inappropriate contact with an underage student 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. Additionally, Texas teachers Meredith Null and Edna Longoria were arrested on similar charges.
As for why the number of these incidents has seemingly increased, studies suggest that smartphones are the primary reason for the spike in illicit relationships, as it allows teachers to communicate with the minors without supervision.
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 at any time. If there is anything that we missed, please feel free to send an email to editor@teamcoed.com and we will respond as soon as possible.