Former teacher gets four years in prison for sex with students

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A former Campbell Memorial High School teacher has been sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to having sexual relations with three 17-year-old male high-school students.

Shannon Pavlansky-Wojtowicz, 31, of Edinburg, Pa., drew the sentence Tuesday from Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

She had entered guilty pleas in August to three third-degree felony counts of sexual battery and single counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles, both fifth-degree felonies.

Jennifer McLaughlin, an assistant county prosecutor, recommended that Pavlansky-Wojtowicz be sent to prison.

“The sentence here needs to send the message that it is inappropriate for teachers to be having sex with high- school students,” McLaughlin said, conceding that the boys consented to the sexual activity.

“I don’t make any excuses. I am taking full responsibility,” said the tearful and apologetic former teacher, who is expecting her first child in November.

“You took advantage of these innocent young boys and changed their lives forever,” Judge Krichbaum told the defendant, calling her crimes “unforgiveable.”

Judge Krichbaum refused a defense request to delay the former teacher’s incarceration until after she gives birth.

Pavlansky-Wojtowicz will be on probation for five years after prison and will have to register as a sex offender quarterly for the rest of her life.

The sexual-battery charges accused Pavlansky-Wojtowicz of having sex with one student from November 2014 to January; with another student from Nov. 1, 2013, to May 31, 2014; and a third student from Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, 2011.

The charges included specifications she was acting as a teacher or employee of the Campbell school district at the time of the offenses.

The other charges relate to inappropriate text messages she purportedly exchanged with the students.

Pavlansky-Wojtowicz was placed on leave in January after allegations arose that she exchanged inappropriate text messages with a student in December and January. She later resigned and voluntarily surrendered her teaching license.

Investigations involving Pavlansky-Wojtowicz stretch back to 2012 and include a separate case in which she was being harassed by a student who threatened to expose her affairs.

Since then, a Campbell police officer was demoted and suspended for his conduct in handling that case; a high- school principal was placed on leave and then brought back; and the investigation had to be taken over by the county sheriff’s office and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.