By Erik Harris
PINSON – Nearly five months after resigning from her teaching position at Pinson Valley High School, 27-year-old Jennifer Marin Perry has been placed on probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of having sexual contact with a student under the age of 19.
On Wednesday, Jefferson County District Court Judge Katrina Ross placed the former teacher on a yearlong unsupervised probation. Perry was initially sentenced to six months in jail.
When the investigation began in February, Perry, an Odenville native, was in her first year serving as an educator after graduating from Jacksonville State University with a bachelor’s degree in secondary education in 2014.
On Feb. 24, sheriff’s detectives began an investigation into reports of inappropriate sexual contact between Perry and a 17-year-old male student at Pinson Valley High School.
The school administration notified the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office that the teacher in question had come forward reporting that she had been told by students that there was a rumor being passed at the school that she had engaged in a sex act with a male student.
Perry denied any wrongdoing and resigned from her position as the freshman English teacher and cheerleading sponsor at Pinson Valley. She made her official exit from the school on Feb. 24.
She has already lost her teaching license and will now have to register as a sex offender, following the guilty plea.
According to the sheriff’s office, Perry and the student met in a parking lot a few miles away from the school’s campus to engage in a sex act on Feb. 8. The act, which took place in a parked vehicle, was consensual.