The state's highest court upheld yesterday the child abuse conviction of a Kenwood High School teacher, saying that Wendell D. Anderson had "responsibility for supervision" of a 14-year-old girl when the two had sex hours after the close of the 2000 school year.

Anderson was convicted of numerous sexual offenses because of the girl's age.

At issue for the Maryland Court of Appeals was whether he should be convicted of child abuse, a charge that requires the defendant to have a special relationship of responsibility with the child.

Although the court split 4-3, the majority agreed with prosecutors, who said that Anderson's position at the school gave him a special role of responsibility toward the girl, though he was not one of her teachers and though the sex took place after school and off school property.

The dissenters said that was an overly broad interpretation of the law.

"Simply because a parent sends a child to school, thereby entrusting that child to the school, does not mean that every teacher in that school has, or assumes, responsibility for supervision of that child," the dissenters wrote.