CHRISTIAN SCHOOL TEACHER HAS SEX WITH STUDENT
School leader: Ex-teacher charged in sex with student had stellar recommendations
Gary Taylor | Sentinel Staff Writer
11:20 AM EDT, October 23, 2008
TODAY’S UPDATE: 11:20 a.m. The headmaster of Warner Christian Academy said today that Cynthia Horvath came to his school with excellent recommendations and this is the first time a teacher has been accused of having a sexual relationship with a student at the South Daytona school.
Mark Tress, the school’s headmaster, also said he is confident that the alleged activity is limited to one student, an unidentified 17-year-old.
Faced with termination, Horvath, an English teacher and cheer coach, resigned from Warner Christian Academy on Oct. 12, Tress said.
The next day he contacted South Daytona Police, who referred the investigation to police departments in Port Orange and Daytona Beach after determining the sexual activities between the teacher and student took place in those cities.
Police in Port Orange and Daytona Beach both charged Horvath on Wednesday with illegal sexual activity with a minor.
Tress said Horvath passed a background check before she was hired. “Her recommendations were stellar,” he said. “She had an excellent rapport with all the students.”
Although the teenager involved with the teacher still attends the school, the school has not yet decided if he will be allowed to remain at the school, Tress said. “That has not been resolved,” he said. “We want to do what’s best for the student and what’s best for the school.”
The school, in its 38th year, has about 650 students in nursery through 12th grade. “This is the first time we have ever experienced anything like this,” Tress said.
Tress said he is not sure there are any steps that could have been taken to prevent the incident since the school conducts thorough background investigations.
But he has met with the school’s faculty since the incident came to light.
“I’ve asked the teachers to immediately report anything that doesn’t look right,” he said. “We want to make sure we’re not missing any signs that indicate there is a problem.”
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From the Oct. 23 print edition of the Orlando Sentinel:
A little more than a week after she quit her job at a private Christian school in South Daytona, a former teacher was charged Wednesday by two police departments with having illegal sexual activity with an underage student of the school.
It was the second time in a week that a Central Florida teacher was jailed on sex charges involving a student.
Cynthia Horvath, 45, was arrested by Port Orange police on Wednesday morning and taken to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach, where a short time later Daytona Beach police filed an identical charge against her. Investigators think the two carried on their relationship at hotels in those cities.
Bail was set at $20,000.
Horvath resigned as a teacher at Warner Christian Academy on Oct. 12, the day before a school official contacted South Daytona police about allegations she had a four-month sexual relationship with the student, according to a police report.
Headmaster Mark Tress told police that weeks earlier there had been rumors of a teacher and student having a sexual relationship and that the rumors were finally confirmed by the student’s father, according to the report.
Messages left Wednesday for Tress were not returned.
Horvath taught English and was the school’s cheer coach, according to Warner Christian’s Web site. A short biography on the site said she taught at the school for three years and elsewhere for five years and that she is married with four children.
South Daytona police did not investigate Horvath because it determined her involvement with the student did not take place in that city, South Daytona police Lt. Ron Wright said.
An investigation revealed the teacher and student were engaged in sexual activity in multiple locations in Port Orange between June and September, said Port Orange police Detective Capt. Frank Surmaczewicz. While investigators in Daytona Beach charged Horvath with a single incident in June, “We have other incidents that are still under investigations,” Daytona Beach police Sgt. Jimmie Flynt said.
Eustis High School English teacher Laura Pace, 38, was arrested Friday, accused of five counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office began investigating earlier this month after the School Board received an e-mail detailing sexual misconduct between her and two male students. Detectives spoke with the teens, who confirmed they had sex with Pace, sheriff’s Sgt. John Herrell said.
Pace has been suspended, Lake schools Superintendent Anna Cowin said. She tried to resign this week, but Cowin refused and said Pace’s employment status is pending.
Gary Taylor can be reached at 386-851-7910 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Maybe when Christians admit that sex is a basic human need, incidents like this will cease.
