Our nation’s public school teachers are supposed to be intelligent and reasonably well educated. They are required to have baccalaureate degrees, and the vast majority of systems require teachers to obtain their master’s within about five years or so. Oddly enough, when I went to high school, back in the days of inkwells and quill pens, we had exactly one teacher who had his masters, yet I’d argue that we emerged from high school far better educated than what our public schools are producing today.
So, the obvious question is: why are so many of them so boneheadedly stupid?
Conestoga High School teacher facing 63 charges for allegedly having sex with student
Michelle Mercogliano, a special education teacher at Conestoga High School, was charged by the Tredyffrin Township police.
By 6abc Digital Staff and Briana Smith | Wednesday, April 30, 2025 | 7:34 PM EDT
TREDYFFRIN TWP., Pa. (WPVI) — A Chester County teacher is facing 63 charges for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old student.
Michelle Mercogliano, 35, a special education teacher at Conestoga High School, was charged Wednesday by the Tredyffrin Township police.
The investigation began Monday when police were contacted by family members of a juvenile male student.
I have previously noted that when the reports are structured to not specify the sex of the victim, I have strong suspicions — albeit not always confirmed — that the abuse was homosexual in nature. In this case, we’ve been told explicitly that Miss Marcogliano’s alleged victim was male.
A criminal complaint obtained by Action News states the student says they had sex about 12 times since February. The majority of the interactions allegedly happened at Mercogliano’s parents’ house in Wayne.
The charges also state that she provided marijuana — ‘medical’ marijuana 🙂 — to the victim. We’re progressing from “boneheadedly stupid” to “dumb as a box of rocks.”
Let’s tell the truth here: teenagers are not the most reliable secret keepers, and 16-year-old boys mostly brag about getting laid. You’d think a 35-year-old teacher would be aware of that. And teachers getting arrested for having sex with students is a subject that’s in the news frequently enough that teachers have to talk about it among themselves. Whether any of her fellow teachers at Conestoga High knew about, or suspected, Miss Mercogliano’s (alleged) activities was not revealed.
If she wanted a younger guy, she could (probably) have picked up an 18-year-old who wasn’t a student at her school, and it would have been perfectly legal. But no, she had to be (allegedly) stupid.
The age of consent in the Keystone State is 16, so Miss Mercogliano’s (alleged) activities would have been legal had she not been a teacher in the same school as her victim, and thus held a ‘power advantage’ over him.
Clearly, if Miss Mercogliano is guilty of the offenses with which she has been charged, she’s messed up in the head, but that should not be an excuse that keeps her out of prison.