A girl whose testimony helped convict a Northeast High School teacher of having sex with her told an Anne Arundel County school system hearing examiner last night that another teacher, Laurie S. Cook, covered up for the affair at least 15 times.
The 18-year-old student testified that after her school-hours liaisons with Ronald W. Price, then a social studies teacher at Northeast, she would obtain a pass back to class. On the way, she would stop at Ms. Cook's classroom to get a replacement pass that would bear her signature -- rather than Price's.
The teen-ager's testimony, which lasted about half an hour, indicated that Ms. Cook knew the girl, then 15, was being sexually abused in the 1992-1993 school year by a teacher and failed to report it to authorities as required by Maryland law.
Ms. Cook also is charged administratively with having oral sex with a teen-age boy who was a student of hers in the 1991-1992 school year. She was acquitted of that charge in court last December.
The female student's sexual relationship with Price endured for much of her sophomore year until April 1993 when she confessed to a guidance counselor. The confession unleashed a series of investigations by police, social service workers and school system investigators that led to the arrests of three other Northeast teachers, including Ms. Cook, on charges they each had sex with a different student.
Ms. Cook was acquitted of the criminal charge a year ago, but now is fighting to keep her job. She has been suspended since July, when the school superintendent charged her administratively with four counts of misconduct and recommended she be fired.
Last night, the third session in the personnel hearing, the 18-year-old said she became friends with Ms. Cook while in the 10th grade.
The woman said she confided in Ms. Cook about her relationship but stopped short of admitting that she'd had sex with Price.
"She told me that deep inside she knew," the student said. "But she wouldn't let me say 'Yes, I am sleeping with Ron Price.' "
She said Ms. Cook warned her, though, that other teachers were gossiping "in the teacher's lounge over lunch. . . . She just wanted to watch my back I guess."
The teen-ager said Ms. Cook devised the pass-exchange plan to quell rumors linking the girl with Price. "I would take it to her and she would rewrite it," the girl said. It happened "15 to 20 times," she said.
The woman said she spoke with Ms. Cook a day or two after she told police about her trysts with Price.
She said she called Ms. Cook "for support because at the time I had a lot of people harassing me for what I had done." But she said Ms. Cook told her, "I should never have come forward because I was going to get her fired."
The conversation ended when Ms. Cook hung up abruptly, the student said. She said Ms. Cook rebuffed a second effort to discuss what had happened. "I got a very cold shoulder and I was asked to leave the classroom," she said.