Burbank middle school teacher who had sex with student sentenced to two years in prison

A Burbank middle school teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student was sentenced to two years in state prison on Friday.

She also must register as a state sex offender, a judge ruled.

Amy Beck, 33, surrendered at the Burbank Police Department headquarters in March and was booked on suspicion of lewd and lascivious acts.

She was apparently overcome by guilt, Burbank police officials said.

Burbank police investigators allege that Beck, a teacher at David Starr Jordan Middle School, had a relationship with one of her male students from March to September 2009.

Beck was a well-known and popular teacher at David Starr, and both teachers and students expressed shock at her arrest.

-- Shelby Grad

Photo: Jordan Middle School sixth-grade teacher Amy Beck joined her colleagues in togas for the celebration of annual Greek Day in April 2009. Credit: Scott Smeltzer / Glendale News-Press

A Burbank middle school teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student was sentenced to two years in state prison on Friday.

She also must register as a state sex offender, a judge ruled.

Amy Beck, 33, surrendered at the Burbank Police Department headquarters in March and was booked on suspicion of lewd and lascivious acts.

She was apparently overcome by guilt, Burbank police officials said.

Burbank police investigators allege that Beck, a teacher at David Starr Jordan Middle School, had a relationship with one of her male students from March to September 2009.

A Burbank middle school teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student was sentenced to two years in state prison on Friday.

She also must register as a state sex offender, a judge ruled.

Amy Beck, 33, surrendered at the Burbank Police Department headquarters in March and was booked on suspicion of lewd and lascivious acts.

She was apparently overcome by guilt, Burbank police officials said.

Burbank police investigators allege that Beck, a teacher at David Starr Jordan Middle School, had a relationship with one of her male students from March to September 2009.

-- Shelby Grad

Photo: Jordan Middle School sixth-grade teacher Amy Beck joined her colleagues in togas for the celebration of annual Greek Day in April 2009. Credit: Scott Smeltzer / Glendale News-Press

Comments

[bikram prasd]

nice

[cowbell]

Pathetic.

[Crazy Horse]

If I was that student with this cutie, I never would've said a word when the cops came knockin'.

Maybe she was overcome with guilt. To each their own. Two years at Chowchilla is no duckwalk. She'll meet some female thugs at that facility. But the overriding worst part of the equation is having to register as a sex offender. That's lifetime and will follow her to all 50 states.

[Mack The Knife]

Something truly needs to be done with this epidemic of child molestation before parents turn to taking the law into their own hands seeking revenge on their prepetrators. Our laws seem ineffective so far.

[Doug from Germany]

So where were such teachers when I was in middle school!

[greg]

Another slap on the wrist for a female sex offender. How much time do you think a male teacher would have gotten for "consentual" sex with a teen girl?

[Emile Zola]

How stupid. This new "morality" looks more like hypocrisy to the nth degree than justice. I'm sure that the boy doesn't feel a victim, it's the morality peddlers that make it so. Why if this boy decides to kill some one gets tried as an adult, but if he is looking to have sex with a beautiful girl, he can't say no. I'm sure she didn't put a gun to his head, so I don't see any problem by them having sex. Why, and it has happened, if a 13 year old girl and a 17 year old boy want to have sex in a school bus and the bus video camera records the act, the city attorney didn't do any thing, why here? It's stupid and immoral to punish some one for having sex, when at the same time nobody gives a hoot about the thousands and thousands of teenagers who sell their bodies every day and night in every major city. This is hypocrisy to the nth degree. A cop, in San Antonio, TX raped, supposedly, a 13 year old girl and he got probation. And to add salt to injury. Two guys were sent to jail for 17 and1/2 and 20 years and they only bought pictures of children. There is something rotten in this morality lynching judicial system. And why the other teacher in Florida, a beauty also, was sent of home confinement. Something stinks to high heaven. This might be an opinion from the court; this can't be justice. Justice is supposed to be blind. No peeking allow, but here lady justice raised the blindfold. That is not fair.

[pmayer]

2 years is too lenient. If the genders were reversed, the male teacher would have been convicted of several crimes that would warrent decades of imprisonment. Somewhere in the back of your mind is the thought, Lucky kid got his boyhood dreams fufilled. Admit it.

[Mike]

Wow, and here I'm single, no chicks around that I would like to hang out with.. and this one is taking home 14yr olds? What the heck is going on around here..

[boochie]

She is a molester regardless of her appearance. If the molester was a great looking male teacher, I wonder if people would have the same opinion?

[Old but not dead]

I wish I had a teacher that friendly when I went to school;) From a guy's point of view if the sex was consensual I don't see much wrong with it. With so many teenage kids having sex these days he would have a better chance avoiding early parenthood, disease and/or jealousy issues with this lady than most teenagers do. There are a lot worse "crimes" that get shorter sentences.

[Bluejeans]

It should have been 14 years.

[Rafael Noble]

Once again it becomes painfully clear that the law treats women like children in American society. While it may be true that, "Two years at Chowchilla is no duckwalk", had she been a man accused of having sex with a 14 year old female, the sentence would have been much harsher. Additionally, had the perpetrator been a man, the charges would have most certainly included rape. A charge not filed against Ms. Beck.
Sex with a minor is the same weather it be a male or female and should be prosecuted fairly, without regard for the sex of victim or predator. Women will never be totally free in this country until they are treated equally under the law, for better or worse.

[Cara D]

Makes no difference is the teacher is a "cutie" or butt ugly. She is the adult in this situation and therefore should suffer the consequences of her actions. I hope she likes her new roommates.

[hvinh99]

The thing, i am mad about is if this is a "Man" having consent sex with a girl student, he will be sentence to jail for 15 years and because she is a women she got only TWO. I hate this sex discrimination.

[Pedro]

Emile Zola you obviously don't get it. Teachers are licensed by the state and have a responsibility and are an adult authority figure. What hope is there for our schools if teachers ( male or female) take advantage of this position to prey on their under age students ? Yes, there is plenty of hypocrisy in our society over sex, but this does not make what this woman did right. For all of you that can't see the young boy as a victim and think" how cool to have your teacher do this", then I challenge you to imagine the student as a female and the teacher a male.

Or better yet the student your daughter. If your opinion changes then there's some hypocrisy..!!

[Why?]

Why are these teachers-sleeping-with-tween-boy-students women generally young and attractive?

[fc]

TWO years?????????????? can you imagine what sentence a MAN would have gotten if HE had had sex with a 14 year old GIRL???? he would have been sentenced to LIFE in prison.

not this blond white woman. oh no, that would just be wrong. so despicable. even more so with the all victims/all the time status white women and women, in general are given.

repugnant.

[michelle]

Hey gregg, I realy sympathize. You poor men! You have always been such a downtroden sector of our society!

[Jay B.]

This stuff never happened to me. Unfortunately.

[Lorraine]

Burbank teacher did not and could not simply and solely have "sex" with a "student" under the criminal statutes of our laws.

She did and is convicted of having deliberately prey upon and feloniously RAPE a child.

For that she justly received two years in jail.

And after she is released from jail she, for the rest of her life, will be known and professionally referred to as a sexual predator of children. Never again to be trusted around any child in a professional setting. Ever.

Not just a sexual act. A felony one. A predatory one. A cruel and abhorrent VIOLATION of a child.

[Greg]

hmmm - If that same 14 year old student would have killed the 33 year old teacher how much do you want to bet that the DA would have charged the 14 year old as a adult? So they are old enough to be charged as a adult in a crime but not old enough to consent to have sex. The age of consent should be the same age that you can be charged as a adult for criminal activity. The DA likes to have it both ways.

[la rider]

There was nothing wrong with what she did. Morale police are just too much in America.

Just because someone is under 18 does not mean they are a child. Circumstances need to be taken into account rather than using numbers to justify such persecution.

Oh, if it was a male and they were much more famous than the lady here., nothing would have happened.

Look up Roger Clemens and his friendship with a 16 year old.

[charles krup]

two years sounds extreme to me. no priors? slap on the wrist is more appropriate. age of consent last century in Cali was 14. and 30 years ago it was 14 in Connecticut and many other states.

[Crazy Horse]

It ain't no big thing.

A man would've gotten approximately nine years.