Schuler resigned her teaching job last week after being on administrative leave since Jan. 18. Mason school board president Debbie Delp said the district took action against Schuler after a Jan. 10 anonymous tip. "The minute we heard it, we acted and did something about it," Delp told the Mason Pulse-Journal.
Daniel Santos, a 2010 graduate, said he doesn’t believe the charges. He called Schuler a close friend and an inspirational teacher who not only helped him to survive a tough period academically, but also convinced him not to quit the lacrosse team when he suffered a knee injury.
Santos said that Schuler’s behavior was never inappropriate, but he’s aware of the persistent rumors: “People have been talking about her as long as I’ve known her, and a lot of that was based on me and how close we were. But I don’t believe she would ever do that.”
Santos said he’s extremely upset about Schuler’s indictment because “she was there for me in my worst times as a high school student and I hate to think that someone would get her in trouble for something that most likely never happened.”
Centerville High School principal Eileen Booher also was shocked by the charges against the 1996 graduate she counted among her success stories: “She was as good a kid as you can get — academically solid, very involved in service clubs and Winter Guard. If you’re looking for a kid who did everything right in high school, she’s the one.”
In 2000, Schuler graduated from Wright State University with a degree in education and married Jerritte Couture on June 24. They divorced in 2006 — at one point each placed a restraining order against the other — and the young couple put their Springboro home on the market for $549,000.
When Booher ran into her former student twice in the past year at athletic competitions, she consoled her about the divorce, reassuring her, “You’re young.”
Despite the divorce, Schuler seemed very much on track with her life. Her personnel file shows that she earned $53,194 in 2008 as a gym and health teacher at Mason High School. She worked several outside jobs, training hundreds of students at Alter High School over the past five years.
In an October 2010 article in the Mason student newspaper, Schuler was held up as a model for time management in the way she balanced five outside jobs.
Schuler said she relied on meditation and organizational techniques to make it through a day that began at 5 a.m. and ended when she returned home at 10 p.m.
Marveled senior Chloe Crites, “I can’t imagine her schedule, because I get stressed and I just have one job. But by being in her class, I’ve learned from her that when I get stressed, it helps to know everything has a purpose and if I focus on one thing at a time it isn’t so bad. She teaches us to always take a break for yourself, because that helps you focus.”
Mick Amend, a 2010 Mason graduate, said many students liked Schuler and that her class was known as an easy one. He recalled an incident in which a classmate uttered a sexual innuendo in Schuler’s presence and “she completely freaked out. He almost got expelled over it.”
Dan Andriacco, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, said that no Alter parents or students have come forward to report inappropriate behavior by Schuler.
She served as a trainer there for the last five years, working with the hockey team and the boys’ and girls’ soccer teams and training about 115 students a year in the three programs.
Alter principal Nicole Brainard sent parents both a letter and a voicemail message informing them of Schuler’s indictment. Brainard told the parents “there was no indication that any Alter students were harmed by Ms. Schuler,” Andriacco said, but “she urged anyone who had additional information to contact the Mason Police Department.”
Schuler declined comment for this story through her attorney, Charles M. Rittgers of Lebanon.
Staff writers Ed Richter and Eric Schwartzberg contributed to this report.
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