SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Texas seems to be on pace to match or exceed last year’s record of 222 investigations into allegations of educators in inappropriate relationships with students.

The Texas Education Agency, which investigates educator misconduct, has opened 159 cases so far in the 2016-17 school year, including more than 80 in 2017 alone, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

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TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson broke the 2017 figures down by month in an email to the news site: 19 in January, 23 in February, and 39 new cases in March.

A detailed investigation by the Austin American-Statesman published in February looked at the growing epidemic of educators sexually abusing students and found that a total of 686 teachers lost their teaching licenses as a result of allegations of impropriety with a student between January 2010 and December 2016.

“The American-Statesman requested from the TEA the names of teachers who surrendered their teaching licenses or whose licenses were revoked after being investigated by the TEA for engaging in an improper relationship with a student,” according to the news site.

“The newspaper then analyzed thousands of records included in government databases and media reports to determine the names of teachers who were charged and ran criminal background checks on those teachers through the Texas Department of Public Safety.”

A total of 308 of the 686 teachers accused, or about 46 percent, were charged with a crime as a result and about 79 percent surrendered their licenses in lieu of disciplinary proceedings rather than through revocation. Of the 280 accused teachers identified in public records and media reports, 57 percent of them were men and 79 percent were under the age of 40.

And in many cases, educators who lost their licenses for sexual relationships with students had worked in multiple school districts.

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“A dozen teachers were found to have worked in more than one district across the state, including some overlapping in multiple Bexar County Districts, records show,” according to the Express-News. “Several teachers were investigated for improper relationships before moving to a San Antonio-area school district.”

EAGnews has documented how accused teachers often secure deals with the help of teachers unions to quietly resign their position and avoid criminal charges. Those deals, which occur in numerous states, allow school officials to avoid the embarrassment of a student-teacher sex scandal in exchange for a letter of recommendation for offending teachers, who then move on to repeat their behavior in other schools.

The practice, known in the education world as “passing the trash,” is nearly impossible to track until after a child sex predator is finally caught and faces charges.

Culertson told the Express-News officials believe the popularity of social media sites are likely contributing the steady increase in cases, a finding consistent with experts interviewed by EAGnews who believe sites like Facebook, Snapchat and allow wayward educators to cultivate inappropriate relationships unbeknownst to parents, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Texas lawmakers are now working to craft legislation to crack down on teachers and other school employees who sexually abuse students, but face resistance from teachers unions that are more concerned about job protections than protecting students.

Similar legislation has been introduced in Congress and other states only to face defeat at the hands of politically powerful teachers unions, which invest heavily in electing Democratic lawmakers.