Student she was in a sexual relationship with.
Student she was having sex with.
Student she was dating.
These are all phrases used by the media to describe what is alleged to have happened between Alexandria Vera, a 24-year-old teacher from the Aldine Independent School District in Houston, and the 13-year-old student she is alleged to have raped and then subsequently become pregnant by.
I’m not sure why people are afraid to write, “24-Year-Old Teacher Raped 13-Year-Old Student and Got Pregnant.” Because I’m quite sure if it were the other way around and Vera was a male teacher, those would have been the headlines.
According to court documents, Vera told authorities that the boy’s parents knew about the relationship and condoned it. According to authorities, Vera started raping her eighth-grade student in 2015, when he was 13. Vera then became pregnant and aborted the pregnancy, according to the court documents. In Texas, sex with anyone under the age of 17, without a three-year age gap between the parties, is considered statutory rape.
Now, some will ignorantly point out that if the parents were OK, then why should people care? Well, first of all, you have to be a pretty low adult to think having sex with a 13-year-old is OK. It’s rape. Point-blank, period. I don’t care if the adult in question is a man or a woman.
Then there are those who think that because the victim is a boy, the situation is some sort of machismo rite of passage. Yes, those people are sick, too. This child was violated. End of story.
Vera, who, according to the court documents, is now being charged with continuous sex abuse of a child, “including an act constituting the offense of aggravated sexual assault of a child,” is an alleged predator. She is charged with preying on an eighth-grader. She allegedly raped an eighth-grader, and I can’t help but hope that she spends a lot of time in jail.