Teacher Charged With Raping Student

A popular teacher of Spanish at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Queens was arrested yesterday and charged with raping a 16-year-old student.

The teacher, Francisco Aguilar, 28, became a long-term substitute for the New York City public school system five years ago and has been instructing students at Cardozo for three years.

Yesterday, he was arrested at his Queens home, the place sources said the attack took place in late June. He was charged with rape and endangering the welfare of a child, becoming the 10th teacher to be arrested since July 1, 2004, for sex-related crimes against students.

Some New York City teachers charged with having inappropriate sexual relationships with students stand out. One, who was removed from Franklin K. Lane High School in December, for example, was known for his mullet and his snakeskin clothes.

Cardozo's Mr. Aguilar wore his dark hair short and dressed conventionally. By most accounts, he was a popular teacher.

A 17-year-old who was graduated from the 4,000-plus-student high school in June, Danielle Jettoo, called Mr. Aguilar an "excellent" teacher who was beloved by his students.

"He taught everybody and made everybody want to learn," the SUNY Albany-bound student said. "He was just an excellent teacher. I got a 98 in that class. I worked like crazy."

The co-president of the school's Parent Teacher Association, Nagy Said, said he didn't know the teacher but was "shocked" by the news.

"I think it's horrible," he said. "I think this is something that it's not just in the school, it's all over. We have to be very careful."

He said the last time an incident like this came up at Cardozo, in February, the school's leadership council discussed students' personal styles as part of the problem.

"They wear tight clothes. They wear short clothes. They wear exploitive clothes. That's how it is," Mr. Said said. "I don't even know the words for what I have to say. It's like inviting for things like this to happen."

He said the leadership council determined that nothing could be done about the short, skimpy outfits preferred by some students. Still, he said, the way students look is no excuse for an alleged rape.

The City Council member who represents the district where Cardozo is, David Weprin, said the alleged incident was "totally inappropriate."

"I think we have to have a little bit more education and discussions and a little bit more serious consideration as to what's going on in the schools," the Queens Democrat said. "This is one of many incidents that we've heard about recently in our school system and in other school systems around the country."

He said the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, should gather the regional school leaders to "get out the word from the top down that there's zero tolerance for this type of interaction between students and teachers."

The city's Department of Education, which has repeatedly called for stricter rules against teachers who sexually abuse their students, immediately fired Mr. Aguilar yesterday. The immediate action was possible because the teacher was not tenured.

"This type of behavior has no place in our schools," a department spokesman, Keith Kalb, said. "Mr. Aguilar has been placed on the ineligible list. He will never teach or be near our children again."

According to the office of the special commissioner of investigation for the public schools, 333 teachers were arrested during fiscal year 2005, nine of them for sex-related crimes.