AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Education Agency is requesting help from the state legislature to deal with a record number of teachers sexually abusing their students.

The TEA’s seven-investigator team is currently handling 1,110 cases involving educator misconduct amid an eight-year high in the number of educators involved with inappropriate relationships with students.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

“The Texas Education Agency launched investigations on 222 teachers in fiscal year 2016, which ended Aug. 31,” The Austin American Statesman reports. “The latest count is an 80 percent increase from 2008.”

Doug Phillips, director of investigations for the TEA, told the news site the biggest increase in improper teacher-student relationships came in FY 2016, a troubling trend that’s fueled by social media sites that give educators more access to students than ever before.

“It just seems like every one of them … involves … some sort of texting or Snapchatting with kids,” he said.

In one of the most infamous cases in the last year, Stovall Middle School English teacher Alexandria Vera, 24, began communicating with a 14-year-old student through Instagram last September. The two eventually engaged in sexual intercourse numerous times through January 2016, and she became pregnant with the student’s child, court documents allege.

The teen’s parents allegedly approved of the relationship and knew about Vera’s pregnancy, but Vera allegedly aborted the unborn baby when authorities began asking questions about her relationship with the student, EAGnews reports.

Vera’s criminal proceedings are ongoing.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

In another case, Euless Junior High School teacher Cornelius Antoine Smith impregnated a 15-year-old student in his speech class, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

[xyz-ihs snippet=”NEW-In-Article-Rev-Content-Widget”]

That relationship allegedly started when the two began communicating through a Kik messenger app.

“He told her after they found out she was pregnant, that he would help her if she was going to have the child or have an abortion,” the affidavit against Smith read. “He also advised her that he would have to take his wife and children to East Texas first, before he could care for her and their child.”

TEA data shows those types of cases have increased drastically since the 2008-09 school year, when 123 improper relationships were investigated.

“The Texas Education Agency investigates all teacher misconduct, including sexual misconduct, misuse of state funds, burglary, theft and hazing, but improper relationships with students make up the bulk of the cases,” the American Statesman reports. “Most of the investigations are done from the agency’s offices in Austin because the unit doesn’t have a travel budget.”

Phillips told the news site the average case takes 113 days to investigate, in part because the TEA has struggled to get schools to properly report abuse.

The state legislature gave the TEA subpoena power last year to compel schools to answer questions, but state Rep. Tony Dale said he plans to introduce legislation next year to impose stronger reporting requirements and harsher penalties for schools that don’t comply.

“Why would a school do that? I think there’s two reasons,” Dale said. “One has to do with perceived liability, like, ‘Hey, if I give Joe a bad reference and he can’t get employed, he’ll come back and sue me.’ And then … the other aspect, sadly, has to do with … a reputation issue — ‘I don’t want my school known as a school that hired someone like this in the first place.’”

The TEA is also requesting $400,000 to hire two more investigators and an administrator for the 2018-19 budget cycle, according to the news site.

“We can always use more help,” Phillips said.