SEATTLE – A former Washington State teacher of the year faces multiple child rape charges for allegedly sexually abusing a student she agreed to care for in her home.

Darcy M. Smith, 41, was named teacher of the year in 2012 for her work with students at McMicken Heights Elementary School while at the same time sexually abusing a student who lived with her in her Renton home, SeattlePI.com reports.

The victim, now 19, reported in May that Smith had sexually abused him for years, starting shortly after he moved in with his sixth-grade teacher at 14 years old to recuperate from an injury. Smith reportedly lived closer to the hospital than his mother, who believed the teacher was a positive influence on her son, according to the news site.

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The victim told police Smith started to sexually abuse him in September 2008 and it continued until he moved out of her home at age 18, according to KOMO News.

Court papers show the young man told investigators “he … thought it was cool” initially, and that “Smith told him not to say anything and made him promise not to tell,” SeattlePI.com reports.

“Smith said she would go to jail and be in big trouble if he told,” according to the charging papers.

The boy told police the abuse got worse when the teacher was drinking, ABC 7 reports.

Highline Public Schools officials put Smith on administrative leave upon learning of the accusation in August, and notified parents of students in her classes when she was charged this week.

“That is our standard procedure any time we hear of allegations,” district spokeswoman Catherine Carbone Rogers told the Seattle Times. “Our student safety is our utmost priority.”

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“Smith was previously named regional Teacher of the Year for King and Pierce counties and Bainbridge Island and received multiple Highline School District awards,” the Times reports.

“She was called ‘truly exceptional in her practice’ in an announcement after she won a Highline Schools Foundation Gold Star Award in 2012.”

In a 2013 essay published among others by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Smith wrote that a teacher’s job is “not merely to enrich the lives of our students academically.

“We have a much greater responsibility to the children we teach,” SeattlePI.com reports.

“We do not always know what role we are fulfilling for a child at any given moment, but it is important to remember that we have a moral obligation to fill these roles when we can,” Smith wrote.

Smith is scheduled to be arraigned on three counts of child rape Feb. 12.

The Seattle Times noted that Smith’s case represents the second sex abuse charges have been filed against a sixth grade Highline teacher – the first being Mary Kay LeTourneau, who was convicted in 1997 of having sex with a teen who was a student in her second and sixth-grade classes.

LeTourneau spent six years in prison for raping 12-year-old Vili Fualaau, whom she married about a year after her release in 2004.

Mary Kay Fualaau, as she’s now known, has two children with Fualaau, one of which she gave birth to while incarcerated, according to Wikipedia.