If you get caught on video allegedly making out with your student in a public park, then you're probably doing something very wrong—and that's why the NY Post has plastered global studies teacher Julie Warning on their front page today. Warning, a 26-year-old teacher at Manhattan Theater Lab HS near Lincoln Center, has been reassigned by the Department of Education over allegedly canoodling in Greenwich Village park with 18-year-old student Eric Arty last Friday. “Yeah, that’s me. I’m kissing a girl,” Arty told the Post when confronted with the photo. “That’s not my teacher that I’m kissing in the picture. It’s just a girl I know.”
Warning, who said she was camping when the picture was taken on Bleecker Street, has also denied any wrong-doing: “He is my student but I’ve never had a relationship with him or any of my students,” she said. “That is inappropriate. I think that this is a misunderstanding.” Her father, Pete Warning, agreed: “It doesn’t seem like her style.” As CapitalNY puts it, "Warning is no Mary Kay Letourneau—Warning isn't in danger of any criminal charges (because Arty is of age), but she faces disciplinary action from the DOE if they find she was romantically involved with her student."
The video (see it here) and pictures were taken by one of her students, who said he saw them stopping and kissing at every red light as they walked hand-in-hand through the village. “It’s hard to fathom,” he told the Post. “I wish it was a different teacher, because she was well-liked. But the DOE should vet its teachers better if this is something she would do.” Other students had similar reactions: “I’d be very disappointed if it’s true,” said 16-year-old Marquis Baggett. “She’s real nice and a great teacher. I passed my global Regents because of her last year.”
The eyewitness added: “She’s definitely the most appealing teacher in the school. She always wore nice skirts, and she had appealing tattoos all over her body.”
