A Long Island principal who resigned abruptly late last year had a sexual relationship with a teenage student decades ago, which is now just coming to light, News 12 Long Island reports.
Jessica Bader, 51, left her job as principal of James H. Vernon School in October. She had just started the position in September after being hired in 2022 as the director of humanities in the same school district.
Details surrounding Bader’s departure were scant at the time, which frustrated parents, according to the Long Island Herald.
However, on Friday News 12 revealed that Bader had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with an 18-year-old student between 2004 and 2005 while an assistant principal of East Meadow High School in Westbury, New York.
A New York State Education Department investigation found that Bader and the male student’s physical relationship included fondling and kissing “in a classroom setting,” according to records obtained by the television station. The pair also had exchanged sexual emails and a hearing officer said phone records showed “substantial contact” between the two.
The student’s mother reported the relationship to school officials, who assigned Bader to work in an administrative capacity that did not involve regular contact with students. She subsequently resigned days later.
Bader was not charged criminally because the student was technically an adult. She argued in state proceedings that the relationship was not improper because it was consensual, the student was legally of age and she did not teach the student in any of her classes.
State education officials took a different view.
“It was a gross error in judgment to believe that it is appropriate for any teacher to kiss or fondle a student in a classroom setting, whether or not the student was in a classroom taught by that teacher or even if that student has technically reached the age of majority,” a hearing officer wrote, according to News 12.
Bader said she misjudged the situation because of stress from birthing twins and the “demands of her personal and professional life,” according to the television station.
In 2007, the state education department suspended Bader’s teaching certificate for four years.
Officials in the Oyster Bay-East Norwich School District, which includes the James H. Vernon School, have not said whether they knew of the allegations against Bader before she was hired. Bader allegedly omitted her work in Westbury from the resume she submitted to Oyster Bay and claimed her teaching certificate had never been suspended, according to News 12.
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[Feature Photo: Jessica Bader/Oyster Bay-East Norwich School District]
