Former Buffalo Grove High Teacher, Football Coach Admits To Harassing Student

BUFFALO GROVE, IL - A former Buffalo Grove High School teacher and football coach has been sentenced to two years probation for harassing a student, according to media reports. Panagiotis Georgitsis, 44, of Elgin, pleaded guilty last week to a misdemeanor charge of harassment through electronic means.

The harassment came to light in early 2016 when police and staff members at Buffalo Grove High discovered the “behavior leading to the charges,” police said.

The Daily Herald reports the harassment began when Georgitsis e-mailed the student, a 16-year-old girl in his geometry class, in December 2015 and asked if she could "find it in her heart to send a smile and eye contact" his way, Cook County assistant state's attorney Lorna Amado-Chevlin said. He proceeded to request a hug from her after class, handed her a note in class that gave her options for future contact and then began texting the girl multiple times per day, starting in January.

During those texts, "the frequency and substance of the defendant's communications escalated and morphed into increasingly inappropriate content," Lorna Amado-Chevlin said. .

District 214 immediately placed Georgitsis, on leave shortly after ”becoming aware of the situation,” a district spokeswoman told the Chicago Tribune. He had been employed with the district for 12 years and has since resigned.

Besides the probation, a Cook County judge sentenced Georgitsis to six months of home confinement, to pay $5,250 in restitution, undergo sex offender and mental health evaluations and banned him from teaching or coaching until 2019, according to the Daily Herald.

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