Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for January 22, 2007 VIENNA HS EX-BAND TEACHER

From the Southern Illinoisan...

Ex-band teacher in court today for sexual assault case

by andrea hahn, the southern VIENNA - Jarod Shumaker is due in Johnson County Circuit Court today for a hearing on the criminal sexual assault case initiated against him in November 2005.

Shumaker, 28, is said to have had an ongoing improper relationship with a 17-year-old student at Vienna High School, where he was the band teacher.

The case has been in the court system for just over a year as Springfield-based defense attorney Richard Frazier and Johnson County State's Attorney Tricia Shelton wrangle the intricacies of what will and will not be allowed in court.

The defense initially argued that no crime had been committed because the alleged victim had attained the age of consent, being 17 years old when the incidents are said to have occurred. However, because Shumaker was a teacher and the girl a student at the same high school - though not necessarily his student - he was in a position of authority over her, rendering the alleged relationship improper and criminal according to statute.

Court documents record that Shumaker was arrested on April 7, 2006, and was released on $25,000 bond - meaning he paid $2,500 cash. He has been free on bond since then. A condition of his bond was no contact with the alleged victim.

That condition was expanded to include no telephone contact after the victim said Shumaker called her twice in September 2006. During one of the phone calls, Shumaker reportedly told the girl he had stepped on and broken the leg of a bird he had bought for her. In another phone call, allegedly made to the girl at a relative's house, he said he "just wanted to talk to her," the girl said.

Shumaker is originally from Olive Branch. He graduated from Shawnee Community College and Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He had been Vienna schools' band director for about five years.