Married Teacher Mom, 36, Sentenced to Jail for Having Sex with Boy, 16

Tara Yvonne Stumph, formerly of Arroyo Grande High School, is the latest female teacher to receive a jail sentence for having sex with a minor boy. The fireman’s wife, who has three young children, pled no contest to the felony charge during her hearing at the San Luis Obispo Superior County Court in California.
seducing a 16-year-old student last August, following an investigation by state authorities. Stumph initially denied the charges last year. The school district placed her on administrative leave when the allegations surfaced.

Tara Stumph

The boy’s family also filed a separate lawsuit against the school district, alleging that Stumph engaged in sexual relations with at least one other student before him. She is also named in the lawsuit.
According to the family’s lawsuit, complaints about her sexual affair with the previous boy were ignored by school administrators, which allowed her to consort with yet another minor. The lawsuit alleges that Stumph “cultivated” her young conquest over several months, encouraging him to trust her. This culminated in an almost year-long sexual tryst from September 2014 to December 2015. The former teacher is also accused of sending the student sexually explicit photos and videos of herself to him during that time.

The civil case against Stumph and the school district will be heard on May 11.
As part of a plea agreement in the state’s case against Stumph, the state prosecutor dropped a second felony charge of oral copulation with a minor, as well as three misdemeanor charges of child molestation. Stumph received a sentence of 180 days by the court this Thursday. Under state law, Stumph is only expected to serve half her sentence.
The former high school teacher is set to serve her sentence starting May 1, and is ordered to four years of supervised probation upon her release. Under the terms given to her by Judge Gayle Peron, Stumph will have to undertake counseling, polygraph tests, and she will not be allowed to contact any males under the age of 18. She is also ordered to stay away from middle schools and high schools. If she violates the terms of her probation, she could serve up to three years in jail. However, she will not have to register as a sex offender.

Speaking for the District Attorney’s Office, Lee Cunningham says that given her lack of a criminal record, they approved of the plea agreement as “it felt like she was a good candidate for formal probation.” He insists that her gender did not affect sentencing.
“Both in terms of the crime that she plead to and in terms of the sentence, if it were a male with no criminal history and it appeared to be an isolated incident, the sentence would be very similar if not identical,” said the spokesman. “I think that it’s an appropriate sentence. It was a very difficult situation.”
The supervising probation officer wrote to the court supporting a lenient sentence: “The defendant has no prior criminal history and she clearly has ties to the community as evidenced by the several letters of support she has received in defense of her character … She has three very young children for whom she acts as the primary caregiver while her husband is away engaged in his duties as a firefighter.”
Had Stumph been convicted of her charges, she would have had to face a maximum of 10 years in state prison.