HARRISON CITY, Pa. – Officials in the Penn-Trafford school district are credited with taking swift action to suspend a teacher accused of stalking and harassing a high school student.

“You can’t take any changes, and you turn everything over immediately,” Penn-Trafford Superintendent Matt Harris said of the district’s decision to suspend Spanish teacher Michael David Garet without pay in February, TribLive.com reports.

Garet, 31, faces charges of stalking, harassment and disorderly conduct for incidents involving a 17-year-old student at the high school between Nov. 23, 2013 and Feb. 1, 2014. The student’s mother reported Garet’s creepy conduct to school officials Jan. 31 over concerns that the teacher’s unwanted attention on the student was getting out of hand.

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Garet reportedly began trading messages with the student through social media sites last year and repeatedly invited the student to restaurants, college basketball games, to school when classes were out, and to his home when his wife was away. The criminal complaint also alleges Garet stalked the student through social media, and attempted to meet him at is workplace, TribLive.com reports.

“In late January, Caret contacted the student’s mother within an hour of her blocking his access to her Facebook page, according to the complaint. Garet sent a message to the student after the student removed a photo of him and Garet from a Twitter account, ‘asking, “Have I done anything recently to upset you at all?”‘” according to the news site.

“There was definite, inappropriate and – in our opinion – criminal conduct on behalf of Garet,” Penn Township Police Chief John Otto told the news site.

“We were able to capture and view a significant number of text messages from Mr. Garet’s phone to the victim in this case’s phone and evaluate those for content. In our opinion, those text messages were very inappropriate and in fact criminal,” Otto told Pittsburg’s Action News 4.

“These texts, while they may not have been directly sexual in nature, were certainly disturbing, certainly put this young man in fear for his own personal safety and certainly crossed the line from inappropriate into criminal conduct,” Otto said.

The teacher, who has taught in the district since 2010, was suspended without pay and escorted from the school building on Feb. 4. He’s currently not listed in tentative teaching assignments recently approved by the school board and district officials are interviewing candidates for his job, TribLive.com reports.

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That seems like a good indication that Garet won’t be returning to teach at the high school.

“Harrison City District Judge Helen Kistler scheduled a Sept. 9 preliminary hearing for Garet, who will receive the charges by mail,” according to the news site.

The district’s handling of the situation should be an example for school districts across the country dealing with educators who prey on students. In many cases, school officials go out of their way to downplay this type of “grooming” behavior, and often delay action until after a pedophile teacher acts on their sexual impulses.

School and union officials have also been known to negotiate secret deals with teachers accused of getting too close to students. The “passing the trash” deals allow those accused of grooming or sexually assaulting students to resign in exchange for a letter of recommendation, which accused educators use to gain new employment in another school district where they typically repeat their behavior.

Officials in the Penn-Trafford district should be commended for taking swift action to stop Garet’s unwanted affections before he took it to the next level.

By going straight to police, and allowing law enforcement officials to investigate his conduct, school leaders are sending the message to other educators that this type of thing won’t be tolerated, and that should give parents in the district piece of mind.