A 42-year-old high school teacher in Georgia turned herself in to police on Tuesday to face charges of sleeping with three of her male students.
Phoebe Jo Chapman surrendered to sheriffs at the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office in Valdosta and has since been charged with three counts of sexual assault.
Police say the charges stem from three separate encounters with different boys.
The students have all since graduated, but investigators say there were still attending Lowndes High School when the alleged sexual encounters occurred.
According to WCTV, the sheriff's office received information about Chapman in March.
Rumors had been circulating the school that she had had relations with the career and technical instruction teacher and male students.
Officers were then able to identify three victims and interviewed them.
All three admitted to having sexual relations with Chapman.
Chapman resigned from the school as the investigation got underway.
'By statute, any time a teacher is involved in a sexual relationship with a student, it's illegal. They cannot be involved,' Lt. Stryde Jones of the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office told WCTV.
Improper relations: Chapman is accused of having sex with three different male students while teaching at Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia
'Those teachers are put in a position of trust, just like law enforcement.
When you're put in that position of trust, you're held to a higher standard and you're expected to make decisions that are comparable with the position that you're in.
Lt. Jones said it appears the relations were kept a secret until the rumors started.
'I don't think other teachers knew,' he told WCTV.
'We have found nothing so far to indicate that anybody at the school in a position of leadership or an employee knew what was going on.
'There may have been other students that knew what was going on but they had not made anything public other than maybe to themselves.'
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