For the first time since being accused of having sex with a student, former Northeast High School teacher Laurie S. Cook spoke out last night in her own defense in an attempt to save her job.
"No, I did not," Ms. Cook replied firmly when asked by her lawyer if she had ever given the student a neck rub, kissed him, touched him intimately or allowed him to touch her, or had sex with him.
It was the eighth night of Ms. Cook's administrative hearing on four counts of professional misconduct. If she is found guilty of even one count, she could be dismissed and lose her state teaching certificate.
Ms. Cook was accused criminally in May 1993 of having a sexual relationship with a male student who was 14 at the time of the alleged incidents. She was acquitted in court but the charge was revived by Anne Arundel County school Superintendent Carol S. Parham after the school investigated the alleged incident to see if Ms. Cook, 34, had violated any school policies.
After the school system's investigation, Ms. Cook was charged administratively in July 1994.
Ms. Cook also is accused of writing hall passes to cover up a sexual relationship between a 16-year-old female student and former Northeast social studies teacher Ronald W. Price.
Ms. Cook also denied that allegation last night.
She recalled only one conversation in which the female student asked her what to do about rumors that the teen-ager was having an affair with Price, who was convicted after the student confessed to a guidance counselor.
Ms. Cook said the student came to her classroom crying one afternoon about a teacher who was allegedly picking on her, and that she wrote her a pass to return to class after the two talked. On another occasion when the student complained about the rumors about her and Price, Ms. Cook said she asked the girl if they were true, and the student said they weren't.
The student testified that it was Ms. Cook's idea to tear up passes written by Price after their liaisons and replace them with hers. Ms. Cook said she wrote passes only for legitimate reasons for students to be out of class, and never wrote more than 20 passes for the girl.
The sex scandal that has become a two-year nightmare for the Anne Arundel County school system began in April 1993 with Price's arrest.
The situation worsened when Ms. Cook, and two other teachers at Northeast were accused of having sexual relationships with students. Ms. Cook and Charles A. Yocum were each acquitted of child sex abuse and a third teacher, never charged by police, was reinstated earlier this year. Price is serving a 21-year sentence at the Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup.
But for the first time, in the cases of the teachers who were acquitted of child sex abuse, the school system initiated its own investigation before returning them to their classrooms. In the past, if a teacher was acquitted, he or she was immediately returned to the classroom.
After an investigation, Dr. Parham recommended Ms. Cook be fired, and the teacher appealed, resulting in the personnel hearing. Yesterday's session began shortly before 10 a.m. and concluded about 9:20 p.m. The next hearing date was to be set today.
Yesterday, Ms. Cook also denied that she visited the male student's family's home three or four nights a week and often stayed until 1 a.m.
"I went about two times when I had him as a student," she said. "One time I took him to his sister's tonsillectomy and another time I dropped off a homework assignment. I did that to a lot of students to show their parents they really weren't doing their work."
Ms. Cook said she visited the student's home during the summer because she had hired his father to work on her rental properties.
But she said that in the fall, she could not have been at the family's home more than twice because she was taking classes at the University of Maryland College Park, two nights a week.
Other nights, she said, she would take aerobics classes at a spa near her home.
Also yesterday, a Northeast High School graduate, Melissa Schisler, testified that Ms. Cook befriended her and often drove her to and from school three or four times a week that fall to help improve her attendance.
Pending the outcome of the hearing, set to end Jan. 18 with final arguments, Ms. Cook has been assigned to the Carrie Weedon Science Center, an administration office of the school system.