AUSTIN, Texas – Texas is investigating more teachers for sexual relationships with students than ever before, including 56 new cases in the last three months.

The Texas Education Agency – the state agency tasked with education related investigations – opened 56 cases involving inappropriate relationships between teachers and students between Sept. 1 and Nov. 30 of this year, The Houston Chronicle reports.

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The boom follows an exponential increase in recent years.

“According to state figures, the Texas Education Agency opened 141 investigations in the 2009-10 fiscal year, which began Sept. 1. 2009. The annual increase over the next five years was about 9 cases until a jump of 34 cases occurred – from 188 in 2014-15 (to) 222 in 2015-16,” according to the Chronicle.

“Among the 188 cases in Fiscal Year 2015, roughly 100 educators were arrested, officials said.”

Many of the cases in Texas have been both bizarre and disturbing.

Earlier this month, 46-year-old Cigarroa High School teacher Laura Lozano was arrested in Laredo after an officer responded to a suspicious vehicle along the road and allegedly found her inside “nude from the waist down,” the Chronicle reports.

The officer also allegedly found a naked 16-year-old student in her back seat after she claimed to be alone in the vehicle.

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Plano Senior High School algebra teacher Alaina Ferguson, 23, was arrested days earlier for a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student that allegedly started online and led to sex in a local park and at her fiance’s apartment, Fox 4 reports.

Ferguson also provided the teen with nude selfies and alcohol, but was forced to resign from her job and call off her wedding after the affair became public. Ferguson was released from jail on a $100,000 bond but must wear an ankle monitor and refrain from using the internet while she awaits trial for sexual assault, EAGnews reports.

Another young Texas teacher, 24-year-old Alexandria Vera, is awaiting sentencing after she pleaded guilty to a sexual relationship with one of her 13-year-old students at Stovall Middle School. Vera faces up to 30 years in prison for aggravated sexual assault of a child, though a recent plea deal means she’s eligible for deferred adjudication – which could wipe the felony from her record if she successfully completes probation, according to The Washington Post.

Vera met her victim during summer school in 2015 and had sex with him almost daily for about nine months. The boy’s parents allegedly knew about the relationship and accepted it, allowing him to stay over at his teacher’s apartment for romps. Vera told police she became pregnant with the eighth-grader’s child, and his family was supportive, but she later had an abortion when Child Protective Services launched an investigation into the relationship, EAGnews reports.

The student, now 14 years old, was removed from his home and placed in foster care while CPS investigates his parents, according to KHOU.

The Texas Education Agency is highlighting the startling statistics involving educator sexual misconduct as it seeks a $400,000 increase in funding from the legislature to hire two more investigators, as well as another administrator, to keep up with the caseload.

At the end of the last fiscal year, the agency employed seven investigators to handle 1,100 open cases, including 222 involving inappropriate relationships between teachers and students, the Texas Tribune reports.