Former Teacher Sentenced For Inappropriate Relationship With Student
Posted
Staff Report-
Tyler Baatz, a former middle school teacher charged with sexual misconduct with a former student, was sentenced this morning to six years in prison with three years on probation. A former Edgewood Middle School girls basketball coach and language arts teacher, Baatz was arrested Aug. 21 after police received complaints that he had conducted an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old student. He was sentenced by Judge Duane Huffer in Kosciusko County Superior Court. Baatz, 26, Warsaw, pleaded guilty in November to one count of sexual misconduct with a miner, a Class B felony that carries a potential prison term of six to 20 years. In return for his plea a Class D felony count of child solicitation would be dismissed and the state would seek no further charges. Over a period of three weeks in August, Baatz had texted and seen the girl in and out of school multiple times, according to the probable cause affidavit. The girl had been a student of his in the past year. Contact between them began in spring and continued into the school year, text and telephone records indicated. The affidavit states that during summer school, the student would go to Baatz’s room and they would hug and kiss. On another occasion, the girl went to Baatz’s Warsaw apartment and he touched her inappropriately. Warsaw school resource officers and detectives had received the information of a possible inappropriate relationship. Baatz was suspended without pay and later fired.
