Teacher Kathryn Ronk, 30, Gets Prison for Sex with Student

A former Spanish teacher was sentenced to six to 15 years in prison on Tuesday for having sex with a 15-year-old student.

Kathryn Ronk, 30, pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct, the Detroit News reports. Police said Ronk had sex with the student in classrooms at Bishop Foley High School in Madison Heights, Michigan, which is just north of Detroit.

“I’m so sorry for the victim and his family, for the school and the community, my family … and I’m so sorry for my husband,” she said ahead of the sentencing. “With treatment, I’m getting better. I know I have to go away, but this is a lifelong journey, and I am meeting it.”

But that wasn’t enough for Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Nanci Grant, who was distraught and angered over receiving so many letters supporting Ronk, but none mentioning the boy.

“They were all about you and what you were going through. Poor you,” the judge told Ronk, the News reports. “To ignore a crime and a victim and an ongoing involvement in school, outside school, in a car. You did something you shouldn’t have done.”

Ronk appeared “stunned” when the judge handed down the harsh sentence.

She also faces charges in nearby Macomb County for sexual encounters with the boy there as well, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Grant stands by the sentence she handed down, adding that if the case had involved a male teacher and a female student, “there would be people here hanging from the ceiling trying to get every drop of blood.”

“You are dealing with children that are still developing emotionally,” Grant said Wednesday, the Free Press reports.

“To have this continuing double standard is unacceptable. The law does not recognize a double standard, the law is clearly on point in terms that these children are developing human beings. This was a person in position with power and influence over him.”

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