In the past, a report of a teacher becoming sexually involved with a student automatically meant that the teacher was a male. That's what made the Mary Kay Letourneau incident so shocking, female teachers didn't just didn't do that sort of thing.

Well, it appears some female teachers are doing that sort of thing. Karen Robbins is the third female teacher to be arrested for having sex with a minor in Laurens County, South Carolina since June.

Earlier this month, Allena Ward, a teacher at the same school as Robbins, pled guilty to having sex with five teenage boys, some of them students.

Wendie Ann Schweikert, a former elementary school teacher in Laurens County, was sentenced in June to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with an 11-year-old student.

Unjust as it might have been, there was generally an (inaudible) sigh of relief having a child (especially a girl)placed in the classroom of a woman. Worrying about what might happen to boys with a woman teacher didn't elicit any trepidation for most parents.

Did Letourneau open the gates for female teachers to behave as badly as the men, or has it been happening all along and just not been reported? Either way, it's another new and disturbing thing for parents to keep an eye out for.