"There are so many creative ways that could happen it's almost possible to anticipate. We also find still the old-fashioned way of a teacher that brings in porn magazines to school, so there's no end to the possibilities," said Carol Lear, a school board attorney who oversees suspension hearings.

Trouble spots

License suspensions start at the district level before a complaint is forwarded to state officials. State records show sexual misconduct among teachers occurs statewide, but some districts report more problems than others.

One of those is the Alpine School District in Utah County, which has had 11 licenses revoked or suspended for sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment, viewing pornography and sexual abuse of a minor.

The district's human resources director, John Spencer, says the district is aggressive about finding those violating law or school policies. It uses an Internet filter system that reports what search terms or Web sites were blocked and from which computer it originated.

"If it's shown that inappropriate access has been made or attempted, there's never been a case in our district that did not lead to termination," Spencer said.

Spencer said teachers are also trained about the appropriate boundaries between them and students. Sometimes, however, that training is ignored.

In 2002, a teacher at an unspecified Alpine high school had his license suspended following a guilty plea to three counts of forcible sexual abuse of minors. Spencer said an administrator filed a complaint after seeing suspicious behavior.

"Some of the common telltale signals are where a teacher or employee doesn't recognize professional boundaries. That seems to be the most common trait of people who have offended in this way," he said.

Heavier penalties?

After learning the results of the AP analysis, Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, said lawmakers need to stiffen penalties for teachers who engage in sexual misconduct, including looking at pornography at school.

"My goodness, these people obviously have a problem to not even leave it at home," Buttars said.

He suggests pornography likely is at the root of other sexual misconduct.

"You watch porn during the noon lunch hour and your kids come back to class. Are you thinking about English or how different the kids look compared to what you were just looking at? It's sick," Buttars said.

"They should be held to a higher standard. The teacher is in an intimate relationship with the kids — talking to them, teaching them, being up close to them, becoming their friend, being trusted," he said. "They are in a very powerful position with these kids.... To find out this guy is bringing porn to school, yeah, there should be a severe penalty for that."

Lawrence considers herself an involved, overprotective parent. She's the former chairwoman of Wasatch Elementary School's community council and has frequent conversations with her children, ages 6-13, about how to spot and report inappropriate behavior.

She encourages other parents to do the same.

"If you don't talk to them, they don't know what to watch out for," she said. "With my tactics, I know that my kids are very aware of the world they live in and that they're not naive.

"I would hope that nothing ever happened to them. That's my biggest hope — and my biggest fear."