Old Bridge High School teacher pleads guilty to sexual relationship with student
By Sue Epstein | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
John Munson/The Star-Ledger
Performing arts teacher Lisa Glide is pictured in the 2007 Old Bridge High School yearbook.
OLD BRIDGE -- A drama teacher at Old Bridge High School pleaded guilty today to having a four-month sexual relationship with one of her students last year.
Lisa Glide, 35, of Howell Township, tearfully admitted to Superior Court Judge Frederick De Vesa in New Brunswick that she had sexual relations with one of her male students twice. But under questioning by her attorney, Michael Nolan, she said neither time was on high school property. Glide pleaded guilty to fourth degree endangering the welfare of a child and faces up to 364 days in the Middlesex County jail when she is sentenced in August. She also agreed to give up her teaching certificate and not reapply for a teaching certificate in any public school New Jersey.
The agreement with the state also calls for Glide to be placed on up to five years of probation and receive mental health counseling as required by her probation officer. During her probation, she can have only supervised contact with males under the age of 18.
In return for the guilty plea, the state agreed to drop a second-degree sexual assault charge and reduce the degree of the endangering charge from third to fourth.
Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Christie Bevacqua said the state agreed to the reduced charges because "the victim wanted to be spared having to testify."
Bevacqua said the victim, who was 17 at the time and graduated from the high school last June, "was fine with this plea agreement."
Glide, who organized the high school's plays, was arrested in December. She began teaching at the high school in September 2004 and was suspended after her arrest. The relationship with the student took place between February and May of last year.
Before working for Old Bridge, Glide was employed with the Marlboro Township schools from 2001 to 2004, and worked for Jersey City schools from 2000 to 2001, authorities said. She began her teaching career as a substitute in Weehawken in 1999 and 2000.
She was earning $50,943 annually as a teacher in Old Bridge. She majored in theater at Montclair State University and studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute.
In a December 2005 article in The Suburban, a weekly newspaper in Old Bridge, Glide said she appeared on the soap operas "One Life to Live" and "All My Children," and was on an episode of the television drama, "Dawson's Creek." She gave the interview after directing the high school's production of Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite."