Harding special ed teacher found guilty of sex with student

Staff report

WARREN

A jury found Eric R. Kline, a special-education teacher at Warren G. Harding High School, guilty of sexual battery in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

Kline, 26, of Ridgeway Place, Newton Falls, will be sentenced later. He could get several years in prison or probation.

Charges were filed after a 16-year-old female student said she and Kline engaged in sexual conduct while alone in Kline’s classroom at the high school in March. She was one of his students.

Kline has been on administrative duties away from the school since the allegations surfaced March 15.

Harding’s principal, Dante Capers, testified Tuesday in the courtroom of Judge Ronald Rice that Kline had his own classroom on the high school’s third floor, but most of his duties involved co-teaching with a social studies teacher.

Read more of the story in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.