(WICHITA, Kan.) He calls it an epidemic in education, teachers and students having sexual relationships. Kurt Brundage was sentenced to prison last week for having sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl. Brundage is a former East High teacher and started his own website about the issue.
“The fact that you’ve never heard anyone talking about it, is the problem, that in of itself is the problem,” said attorney Jesse Hoeme. Hoeme is Brundage’s defense attorney. He says the former teacher started the website to try and make something good out of a bad situation.
Brundage was convicted of indecent liberties with a child. He pleaded guilty to having a sexual relationship with one of his students.
Earlier this year, he designed The Silhouette Initiative. The website details his life since being charged with a sex crime. Brundage also writes on the website that he wants to educate teachers about temptations with students.
“Kurt’s objective to work with teachers or educate teachers in some fashion isn’t necessarily a bad idea, if it at least gets people talking about this problem,” Hoeme said.
The State Board of Education does not specifically track sexual misconduct between teachers and students. The issue falls under inappropriate incidents, which includes having sexual relations or providing students with alcohol or drugs. Records show Kansas has averaged about 6-7 of those incidents per year over the last seven years. All of those teachers lost their teaching licenses.
“Six to seven instances per year would probably be low. Those are just the ones we hear about, and whenever a teacher is caught doing something like that, it does catch publicity,” Hoeme said.
During Brundage’s sentencing, prosecutors used the website as evidence against him. But Hoeme says he thinks the website helped. Brundage’s wife is listed as the website administrator. His attorney would not speculate if she’ll keep the website up to date while her husband serves his two and a half year prison sentence. Once released, he has to register as a sex offender.
by Sia Nyorkor
KWCH 12 Eyewitness News