Very good article!

As an alumni of Triton I find this to be shocking! Look no matter what year anyone went to school at Triton you always had the good looking teacher and the "popular" girls. The difference is not everyone acts on it! Both sides of this story are guilty in my eyes including administration! The teachers should have known better and if these so called "victims" were really victims why were they going on shore trips etc...? The were fully aware of what they were doing thats obvious and its just a shame that all the penalties are being pushed to one side of this ordeal! The administration should be ashamed as they promise to protect our youth and remain at the higher end of the education chain at the school!! This story is truly heartbreaking to me and I even graduated with one of these teachers so i'm truly shocked as I would have never expected this type of thing to happen at Triton :(

Where was all this when i was going to school?? i feel a bit left out!

I was a member of Triton's class of 2012. I knew each of the teachers first hand as well as the young girls involved. What occurred was a terrible mistake, but I'm still proud to be a triton graduate. Mr. Michelli was an awesome teacher who unfortunately made a bad decision, but I loved every day of his Statistics class senior year. I wish the best to everyone involved in this case

I do not know about the other 2 teachers but Dan Michielli is MARRIED with a pregnant wife at home and he is having sexual intercourse with a 17 year old student. He also was the Class Advisor who took complete advantage of his student. Regardless if she consented or not, he should know that you do not have sex with the students.

The administration should have known better too. All of them should go to jail as long as possible.

I do not know what is wrong with society these days.

I can't believe how many women on these blogs are so willing to turn back women's rights 50 years! You have got to be kidding me with all of this stuff about these girls doing anything, these are laws being broken by adults! These are people entrusted to teach our children and prepare them to make good decisions in life. We assume when we send our children to school that they are in a safe environment not one where the culture allows predatory behavior by those in power. If this was your child, would you come on here and say that she deserved it? This is the problem, when folks try to explain away bad behavior and make excuses for it, people like these idiots feel empowered to get away with it! Please pick up your morals when you leave, you must have left them at the door!

It is a little scary how many people are willing to just shrug this off because the girls were old enough to (and more than likely did) consent to these acts. Deos it matter? I mean, at the end of the day, these were adults- they were teachers- authority figures- shouldn't they have known better? I mean at the very least, they were just flat out stupid. At worst, criminal.
I keep hearing what great "teachers" they were- and maybe that is true- but they certainly were not good people. Good people don't cheat on their pregnant wives with juveniles. Sorry. No justification here.
I don't care if these girls came strutting into the classroom naked and threw themselves at these guys- it's their job, as an educator, as an adult, as a married man, as a decent person, to walk away. No justification.

Here is what the teachers and principals can expect from the law: A few weeks ago in Texas a female high school teacher was sent to prison for five years for fooling around with male students. She is in her 20s. She has a husband and young children. In Texas they don't mess around. In Texas the message is: Fool around with your students and you are going to prison, to the big house! We do not care if you are female or male. We entrust you with our students and you violated your trust. Hasta la vista, baby! Off to prison with you --- your life and career are destroyed.

Have you noticed that most of these scandals start with a simple e-mail or text from the teacher or student. Something like, "Hey, what time is your workout at the field? I would like to see you." It is incredible how this type of simple icebreaker leads to a full blown scandal after a few months. If you notice about this case, it is the e-mails and text messages that confirmed to investigators from law inforcement that something hot was going on between the teachers and students. Without the e-mail and text evidence it would have been much more difficult to arrest them. The message is clear = be careful about what you write in your e-mails and text.

>> "The mood was mixed outside of Triton Thursday, as some students left school chanting “free Martinelli!”
This is so typical of society today, forget about the law we're more interested in popularity contests. Given the students making this kind of statement are probably all minors, one wonders what they are learning in the schools.
Seriously, folks, what's so hard to believe?

The teachers should be fired but let's not kid ourselves. These girls were not victims, they were willing participants in this. This is t like the Sandusky case, these teachers weren't praying on helpless girls. I have a daughter that goes there and a son and they all know the truth. Don't get me wrong the teachers shoukd be fired and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Where I am going to have a problem is when these girls and their parents file a civil suit against the school for millions. It was the girls actions that helped cause this and for them to go and sue the district, an already beat down area, is disgraceful. This will mean cuts to programs or cuts in teachers in order to pay the damages. So to the patents I hope you don't do that. These girls weren't victims, they sought this out.

To clarify I think the teachers are one hundred percent wrong. They should have known better. For that they should be found guilty and what ever laws apply should receive punishment. The girls weren't victims and they shoukd stop being portrayed as such. They should receive no financial compensation from the district for their inability to keep their legs together. These girls weren't raped or abused, they sought this out. They weren't these pure innocent young women. Needless to say they weren't goin to wear white on their wedding days. My question is where were the parents of these young women?? What were they doing?? It's sad. The whole thing is sad and the saddest part is that the current and future students will be the ones to suffer the most from this. So what's the lesson for teenagers. Seduce your teacher, have sex with him like you said you would, then have mom and dad file a civil suit against the school and become very wealthy. Who would've thought it paid so well to be a whore.

In response to J.V.comment. First of all women wear white on their wedding day because marriage is a sacrament and like all the others...baptism,communion, etc the person wears white. In addition the girls were not whores!!!! They did not seduce. They were at school trying to get a lawful education. They girls had to be there. The teacher are at fault for not being able to control their sexual feelings as they were the adults in the situation: and it was their job. If the school cannot hire and manage responsible teachers who do not take advantage of young women or men then they will get the lawful punishment. How dare anyone call a high school girl a whore! How dare J.V. call anyone a whore. You would not want someone the call your child names if something happen to them.

I have 2 graduates from Triton and 1 currently going there. My children all received a good education. I just feel bad for them because when they say where they went they will get looks, questions etc. Let us not be fooled, There is good and evil everywhere. I will not let a few bad apples spoil the whole orchard!

5 bad apples that we know and every teacher that heard the "rumor" is also at fault for not calling authorities to investigate. If a teacher overheard a student talking about another student being abused at home, that teacher is obligated to report it to authorities, no questions asked! They should clean out that whole school of anyone who so much heard a word of it and didn't report it, thats a disgrace and I wouldn't want my children going to any school where teachers would stand by and not act on such behavior regardless if its coming from administrators or colleagues! Complete failure and they should be ashamed of themselves! Clean them all out and start over with teachers who really care about children.

We need to start a children's union so that they can get the same protections as the teachers since they evidently care more about them then the children.

Love how you turn a story about a three teachers into an opportunity to bash all teachers and the NJEA. Typical.

i work at triton, so we all know about the teachers and principals, but what about the students, are they just gonna get a slap on the hand? i think they should be punished too, doesnt matter if it was agreeded on both sides to do what they did, if it happened to my child she wouldnt see the light of day for a very long time.and go to couseling. and then some.

Two moths later and the taxpayers a still paying their salaries.

Until they are charged, tried, found guilty and then dismissed by Board action, the law and NJEA will make sure they have no financial distress. That's why tenure laws need significant changes AND local policies need to reflect the new laws as part of all existing contracts.

We're still paying for them to collect a check.

There is a reason we do stupid things as teenagers, teenagers are children growing into adult bodies, and lack the maturity to know what the consequences can really be. It is the responibility of the teachers to be the adults and keep things from progressing. There seems to be a need to implement additional training on this issue before teachers are hired at a high school, expecially when they are still young and immature themselves. What has changed over the past 20 years is the accessibility of the teachers to the students. E-mails,Facebook and texts open up a way to see teachers more as friends on the same level. That being said, it is the responsibility of the parents to know who their children are texting, and expecially going to the beach with. Obviously the girls share some responsibility, and should not receive a payout for choices they made and got away with. The parents are only teaching them to take no responsibility for their own wrong choices, if anyone deserves a payout, it is the parents of the students that didn't have sex with the teachers, they were the only ones who did their job.

Well said, E. Marie. Our media deluge us with "crap" so much that it is easy to forget that MOST of the kids (and teachers) at Triton [Insert any HS name] are pretty good people who do what is expected of them and try to avoid stupid!