A St. Thomas Academy teacher fired last week by the all-male Catholic prep school admitted to police that she wrote a paper for a student in exchange for marijuana and smoked the drug with two students in her car, according to court records.
Kristin Marie Vanyo, 45, also told police investigators in a May 9 interview that she bought alcohol for students, according to an application for a search warrant filed this week in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.
Mendota Heights police requested the search warrant so that the Dakota County sheriff’s office electronic crimes unit could examine Vanyo’s cellphone and school-issued laptop, as well as two external hard drives from her classroom.
Vanyo has not been charged in connection with the allegations, the county attorney’s office said late Tuesday. Vanyo could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
In an interview with police investigators, according to court records, Vanyo said she bought $120 worth of alcohol for students before the school’s military ball and prom; wrote a paper for a student in exchange for marijuana; asked students to go out for drinks at a bar after school; offered to drive students to Duluth if they would skip school; and bought marijuana from a student.
Vanyo’s texts to the students contained many sexual innuendos, but no one has reported sexual contact or sharing of pornographic photos or videos, the court document said. The students told police investigators they felt uncomfortable with her texts but feared she would give them a failing grade if they told the truth.
St. Thomas Academy officials learned of her alleged behavior May 9 when a student who was being reprimanded for wandering in a school hallway said there were bigger issues going on. According to the court document, the student showed a school staff member a text message that he said he received from a teacher that read, “I’ve never wanted to cheat with anyone in my life, but I want to with you.”
School staff checked a school learning management system that allows for sending and receiving messages and found that Vanyo had sent the student her cellphone number and four messages requesting that he contact her.
Vanyo was fired from her job the day the allegations came to light, the school said last week.
During initial questioning by a police officer, Vanyo first denied any wrongdoing but eventually admitted to sending “flirty” texts to the student and said “they weren’t sexual,” the court document read. She agreed to let the officer read the messages she sent the student.
In the texts, Vanyo offered to buy the student a $500 knife and intended to give it to him at school. When the student questioned the exchange, she replied in a text, “If I can walk around with marijuana on me you can walk around with a shipping box with a knife in it.”
Investigators later learned that the student received sexual propositions from Vanyo by text and “an automatic” A grade, the court document said.
In a follow-up interview with police, Vanyo said that on May 3 she picked up two students and smoked marijuana with them in her car at Bethesda Lutheran Church in Inver Grove Heights from about midnight until 4 a.m. Vanyo and the students said there was no sexual contact during that time, the court document read.
Citing the ongoing police investigation, a spokeswoman for St. Thomas Academy said Tuesday that the school would not comment on details alleged in the search warrant affidavit.
This school year was Vanyo’s first teaching at St. Thomas Academy, but it wasn’t her first teaching job, the school said last week. St. Thomas Academy has 600 students in seventh through 12th grades.
Vanyo’s LinkedIn profile says she taught theology at St. Thomas Academy and previously worked as a technology coordinator for St. Raphael Catholic School in Crystal and for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. She also taught at Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield from August 2000 to June 2013.