Former Bowie High Teacher Charged with Inappropriate Relationship with Student

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX: A former Bowie High School health teacher and coach has been charged with having an inappropriate relationship with a female student that started during the suspect’s time at the school and continued after she resigned from her position.

The school became suspicious of the teacher, identified as 41-year-old Tiffany Howard, when a handwritten letter to the student was found in her desk in 2013, KEYE T.V. reported. At the time both the teacher and student denied an inappropriate relationship had taken place. Howard resigned from the school district that year, but no charges were filed.

In October of 2015, the student told another school coach, and later police, that she had a sexual relationship with Howard that went on after the teacher had resigned. The student also said Howard provided her with rum and money “whenever she asked for it,” the American-Statesman reported.

The case was reopened, and the victim’s father brought forward 52 pages of text messages from the student’s phone sent between her and Howard over an eight to 10 day period. Howard was arrested last week and has now been charged.

“I had never heard anything about it until now,” Bowie High School Senior Miguel Lozano told KEYE. I hope for a safe recovery if anything traumatic has happened. I can only hope and pray that she’s okay and nothing too bad that will affect her negatively.”

A Texas Education Agency report found inappropriate student teacher relationships have risen by 25 percent over the past three years; there of been 188 of these cases in Texas in the fiscal year of 2015.