Teacher Accused Of Sexual Misconduct Married Former Student

ANDOVER, MA -- Victor Svec, the Russian language teacher who Phillips Academy said engaged in sexual conduct with a student in the late 1980s, is married to a woman who was in his class in the early 1980s and who still teaches at the Andover prep school. While a 2011 profile of the couple by the school's student newspaper implied that Svec started dating his wife Lisa after she graduated college, a woman who attended Phillips Academy in the late 1980s said it was an open secret the two started dating while she was still an undergraduate at Dartmouth.

"She was his student, then she went away to college, then she would show up on weekends to visit him," the woman, who asked that her name not be used for publication, said in a phone interview. Svec has been on leave since February when allegations first arose and had announced his retirement while an outside investigation was being conducted. On Monday, the school said the outside investigation had confirmed the allegations.

Neither Lisa or Victor Svec could be reached for comment Thursday. Lisa Svec is a German teacher at Phillips. The school has declined to elaborate on the allegations and investigation beyond what Head of School John Palfrey said in a letter to students and parents.

Svec, who was hired by Phillips in 1978, is the ninth teacher at Phillips to be tied to sexual misconduct. But the alumnus who spoke with Patch noted that most of those offenses occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. The school did not start admitting girls until 1973, and the alumnus said she the school has been proactive in changing its culture and that she believes conditions for students now are much better.

"It's the older teachers that are getting in trouble. In the 80s there was this horrible culture. If you were a girl and you got cat called, that was supposed to be a good thing, even if you didn't like it," she said. "So if a teacher paid attention to you, that was a good thing. It's gross to think about, but you don't hear about this kind of thing happening in the 1990s -- the school has evolved over time."

The woman said she and classmates she has kept in touch with are happy with the way the school has handled allegations of sexual misconduct in recent years and gave a lot of the credit to Palfrey, who has tried to address the issue head on.

"They're not saying 'he's going to retire this year so let's just let it go.' The fact that they're working with [the victim] and giving her a voice says a lot," the alumnus said. "That wasn't the age where people talked about these things, but this is...my friends are elated because this is the kind of thing that needs to be brought up. They're not hiding it."

Read a 2011 profile of Victor and Lisa Svec in the Phillipian, the student newspaper at Phillips Andover.

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Patch file photo.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).