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Former Bishop Watterson physical education teacher Carla Hale was fired in March.

A gay teacher who was fired from a Catholic high school in Ohio says she has been dealt another blow: Her local union isn't supporting her.

Carla Hale taught physical education for 19 years at Bishop Watterson Catholic High School in Columbus. She was fired in March after her name appeared with her longtime lesbian partner's name in her mother's obituary.

The firing, which the school said was prompted by an anonymous letter from a parent complaining about a lesbian teacher, resulted in a heated debate on both sides for the diocese of Columbus.

On Monday, Hale and her attorney announced their request for help with her case had been turned down by the local union for Catholic educators.

"The COACE [Central Ohio Association of Catholic Educators] informs you of the decision of its Grievance Committee not to carry forward the grievance Ms. Carla Hale has filed to challenge the termination of her employment as a Diocesan teacher," read the letter from the Central Ohio Association of Catholic Educators, according to WCMH.com in Ohio. It was signed by the union's president, Kathleen Mahoney.

The association did not return calls seeking comment.

Hale was fired March 28, ater returning from a break for her mother's funeral. She said she was called into a meeting with administrators, who had a copy of the obituary for her mother that she and her brother had written. They also handed her an anonymous letter from a parent calling the diocese disgraceful for employing a lesbian teacher at its school. 

Her termination letter from Bishop Watterson Principal Marian Hutson declared, "Your written spousal relationship violates the moral laws of the Catholic Church."

Following Hale's dismissal, the school said it received threatening phone calls and a slew of online criticism. But it stood by its decision, even as Hale filed a grievance to seek reinstatement and was denied.

"My living arrangements are my personal business. I'm a very moral person," she told reporters Monday after learning of the union's decision. "My decision to acknowledge a loved one in my mother's obituary was not immoral. I am not immoral." 

Hale has also filed a complaint with the city of Columbus, which prohibits firing employees based on sexual orientation. 

Her attorney, Tom Tootle, said it could take a month or more for the city to rule on her case, according to WCMH.com. Without help from her union, he asked her supporters for financial assistance.

"Arbitrations can be very expensive. Without the support and assistance of the COACE, we will need the support of all those who have been out there," Tootle said.

Hale's case has received national attention. A Change.org petition calling her to get her job back has more than 127,000 signatures. Locally, a group supporting her called Halestorm Ohio has more than 5,000 members, according to WCMH.com.

"We have a real opportunity not only to see justice done for a great teacher and great mentor, but to also make history. What we do here could impact employment policy all over the country," Amanda Finelli, a member of Halestorm Ohio, told WCMH.com.

NBC News' Jeff Black contributed to this report.

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Fired lesbian teacher fights to get job at Catholic high school back

A former "teacher of the year" won't serve any prison time after admitting she had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student.

A state Superior Court judge in Newark, New Jersey, sentenced 33-year-old Erica DePalo to lifetime parole supervision.

She also will have to forfeit her teaching certificate and register as a sex offender.

A tearful DePalo made a brief statement in court Monday expressing regret for her actions, and saying she was trying to rebuild her life.

She pleaded guilty in February to child endangerment.

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Prosecutors said the Montclair resident had a brief sexual relationship with a student in her honors English class at West Orange High School.

She initially was charged with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and child endangerment and could have faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Her attorney, Anthony Alfano, said DePalo suffers from bipolar disorder and was on bad medication that can cause errors in judgment.

Related:

Erica DePalo, former 'Teacher of the Year,' accused of having sex with 15-year-old student

PORTLAND -- A local teen says he was sideswiped, and punched in the face. He then learned the stranger accused of attacking him is a local special-needs teacher. 

The encounter happened Thursday afternoon at Southwest Johnson Street and Southwest 200th Court in Aloha. 

Alexander Hoang, 17, was driving home from school Thursday when he said someone started tailgating him in a 25 mph zone. He says the driver tried to make an illegal pass and then sideswiped him. 

Then the two pulled over at the side of the road. 

“He yelled at me ‘Are you trying to effing play games with me?’ Before I could say anything, he landed a couple punches to my face.

The first hard punch was to my lip and then to my eye, right here,” Hoang said. 

Police arrested Liberty High School teacher Bruce Clevenger after he left the scene. He’s facing hit-and-run and assault, among other charges. 

A witness followed the 62-year-old man home from the scene of the attack. 

Hoang went to the hospital with a busted lip and a black eye. He said he’s never been in a fight in his life. The biggest shock wasn’t getting punched; it was finding out who punched him. 

“I was really shocked to hear that. Really, a teacher? A teacher should be a good example to his students. I don’t know what got into him—unbelievable,’” he said. 

Hoang and Clevenger are in the same district but not the same school and never met until yesterday. The teacher is now on administrative paid leave. 

KGW reporter Reggie Aqui contributed to this report. 

A judge on Wednesday set bond for the woman charged in the hit-and-run death of a 6-year-old Grand Prairie boy.

Tammy Lowe, 53, turned herself in to police on Tuesday in connection with the Jan. 24 hit-and-run crash that killed John Paul Raidy.

Her bond has been set at $100,000 for the felony manslaughter charge and an additional $100,000 for the charge of accident causing injury/death.

Lowe's attorney, Cameron Gray, said a judge ignored requests to reduce her $200,000 bond.

He said he met with his client two different times Wednesday. She will likely be transported from the Grand Prairie Jail to the Dallas County Jail on Friday.

Lowe's husband and Gray had a meeting at Grand Prairie police headquarters on Wednesday. Gray would not say what the meeting was about, saying it was "just tying loose ends up."

Police are not questioning Lowe's husband about the hit-and-run, Gray said.

He said his client is thinking about the crash.

"She's very sad about what happened," Gray said. "She feels a great deal of pain for the family of the child."

NBC 5 has obtained seven different calls made to 911 after the hit-and-run crash.

Read more at NBCDFW.com

Heidy Cano, one of the callers, said she is still haunted by what she saw.

"It's like a video recorded in my mind, because it's hard to see that happen," she said.

Cano returned to the intersection Wednesday night for the first time since the crash.

"Right now, I'm standing here, and I can see it like it's happening again," she said.

Lowe, a teacher of 22 years who taught seventh-grade social studies at Adams Middle School, resigned before before surrendering to police on Tuesday.

Family members of Raidy said later that day that they never expected a teacher to be behind the wheel of the car that hit their son.

"You become a teacher because you want to spend your life teaching children, and to think that a teacher was so heartless to do this, it's unbearable," said Christina Raidy, the boy's great-aunt.

But Raidy's family said it was focusing on honoring his life, not on the woman charged in his death. His funeral was held Wednesday morning.

"It's about John; it isn't about her," said family friend Sean Martin.

Related:

Teacher surrenders in hit-run death of 6-year-old Texas boy

Matt Rourke / AP

The Rev. Charles Engelhardt, left, and former teacher Bernard Shero. A jury on Wednesday convicted the pair on child-sex charges.

A Philadelphia jury returned guilty verdicts on child-sex charges against a Roman Catholic priest and former Catholic school teacher.

The verdict supports accounts by a 24-year-old policeman's son that he was sexually abused by the Rev. Charles Engelhardt between 1998 to 1999 and by sixth-grade teacher Bernard Shero in 2000.

The jury convicted Shero of rape, attempted rape, indecent sexual assault and other charges, and Engelhardt of indecent assault of a child under 13, corruption of a minor and conspiracy with Avery. The jury deadlocked on one count, an indecent sexual assault count against Engelhardt.

"The victim in this case has shown exceptional courage," said District Attorney Seth Williams. "Not only did he have the strength to report his abuse, he had the tenacity to look his abusers in the eye and testify in front of complete strangers about the horrific details of his attacks. I hope this verdict will help him to continue with the long journey of healing that comes after such trauma."

A 24-year-old policeman's son and longtime heroin addict says he was sexually assaulted as a child by both defendants. His complaint led to a church official convicted of child endangerment for transferring a suspected predator priest.

The accuser's 2009 complaint describing abuse by two priests and the teacher led to Monsignor William Lynn's landmark conviction last year for endangerment. Lynn is serving three to six years in prison for his role transferring an admitted pedophile priest to the accuser's parish in northeast Philadelphia.

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The young man said the abuse started after Engelhardt caught him drinking altar wine in fifth grade. He said Engelhardt told fellow priest Edward Avery about their “session,” prompting Avery to twice sexually assault the boy. And he said Shero raped him in a car a year later, after driving him home after detention.

The jury convicted Shero of rape, indecent sexual assault and other charges, and Engelhardt of indecent assault of a child under 13, corruption of a minor and conspiracy with Avery. The jury deadlocked on one count, an indecent sexual assault count against Engelhardt.

'No dollar amount could fix this'
Defense lawyers argued that details of his story defied belief, and said the troubled young man was simply looking for a payout from his pending civil suit against the archdiocese.

“OK, so he sued the archdiocese,” Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti argued to jurors Friday. “Who can blame him? ... No dollar amount could fix this, and never could.”

Defense lawyers attacked the credibility of the accuser, who has battled a heroin addiction since his teens, and gave varying accounts of where and how the alleged abuse occurred.

He told the social worker he'd been raped for five hours by Engelhardt after Mass; beaten and tied with sashes by defrocked priest Edward Avery; and raped by Shero at school.

“(He) is the walking, talking personification of reasonable doubt,” argued defense lawyer Michael McGovern, who represents Engelhardt, a 66-year-old Oblate of St. Francis.

The accuser's account got a boost when Avery entered a surprise guilty plea last year. But Avery startled the courtroom this month when he testified that he never touched the accuser, saying he took the plea to avoid a longer sentence at trial.

A lawyer for Shero, 49, described his visually impaired client as an easy target who had been taunted by classmates growing up and by students as an adult. That portrait led Cipolletti to wonder aloud why he went into teaching.

Reminding jurors of the big picture, McGovern urged jurors to resist the “groundswell presumption of guilt throughout this country” when priests are accused of molesting children.

"We hope this verdict will give hope and encouragement to others who saw, suspect, or suffered child sex crimes to come forward, no matter what their personal background is," said the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) director David Clohessy.

Thousands of people have accused priests around the country of abuse, but the complaints were routinely locked in secret archives. Several states, including Pennsylvania, then extended the time limit for child sex-abuse victims to pursue criminal or civil action, although victim advocates want to see additional reforms.

Philadelphia prosecutors saw their chance to renew their exhaustive, but stalled, investigation into priest abuse with the policeman's son, whose claims were viable under the new statutes.

Williams decided to charge Monsignor William Lynn, the former secretary for clergy at the archdiocese, with child endangerment because Avery had been transferred to the boy's parish even though he admitted to church officials that he had abused a boy previously.

Lynn was convicted in the landmark case in June, and is serving three to six years in prison. He is appealing his conviction.

In September, Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn was convicted of a misdemeanor for failing to report a priest known to possess child pornography.

The victims' advocacy group Bishopaccountability.org recently began posting the secret church documents aired at the Lynn trial. And the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was forced to make many of their secret archives public.

“The Philadelphia archive will show why statutes of limitations must be reformed in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and why Lynn and Finn will not be the last church officials to be held accountable,” Bishopaccountability officials said.

"This is an important day for all institutional abuse victims," Williams said. "It is not an easy thing to overcome decades of cover-up and a culture of silence. This verdict will help put an end to the blind eye and the deaf ear with which so many victims of abuse have been received."

A former high school teacher in Texas has been indicted over accusations she had sex with four of her students.

According to a September 2011 search warrant, parents of a graduate and former student of Tonya Flink, 39, reported to police that their son was living with her at her apartment.

They told police that they believed the relationship began while their son was a senior at Haltom High School in Haltom City, which is near Fort Worth.

In the same month, investigators learned of other relationships, according to the warrant.

According to the report from police, the former student in question admitted that the relationship began when he would stay after school and Flink would help him with his grades. Flirting led to Flink "pushing herself onto him," according to police.

Flink would go on to tell the student that "she loved him," that she "liked young Hispanic kids like him" and that their eventual sexual relationship involved "everything you could imagine," police said in the warrant.

Police also reported that they found evidence that Flink made at least 850 phone calls to one of the students in question over a period of a few months.

Investigators also reported that she bought clothes for some of them and that she went to the home of one of her students and secretly knocked on his back door so she could meet with him.

Read more news from NBCDFW.com

According to police, Flink resigned from her position as a computer technology teacher at Haltom High in August 2011, shortly before police began their initial investigation.

Flink went on to teach for a time at Carter Riverside High School in the Fort Worth Independent School District, but resigned from her position long before the district ever learned of her alleged involvement with students, a district representative said.

She was indicted by a Tarrant County grand jury.

Flink is free after posting $10,000 bond. She is due in a Tarrant County courtroom next week, according to her attorney.