Pryor Teacher Admits To Having Sex With Teenage Foster Son, Police Say

Prosecutors have charged a Pryor junior high science teacher with three counts of rape.

Police said Stephanie Cowan is also a foster parent and admitted having sex with a teenage boy placed in her care by DHS.

Pryor police said this began when the teenage boy came forward saying he'd had sex with his foster mother at her home in Salina.

Stephanie Cowan turned herself in with her attorney at court on three counts of second-degree rape.
   
An affidavit said Cowan started being a foster parent to the teenage boy in late October and the first sexual contact happened a month later on the way home from a vacation in Florida.
   
Police said Cowan admitted to having sex with the boy three times after that.

"She advised the first time they had sex was in his room, the second time was in her room and the third time was in the bathroom of her residence," said Assistant Chief James Willyard of Pryor Police Department. 

The Pryor superintendent said all he could say legally is Cowan's a first-year science teacher at the Pryor junior high and has been suspended from her job. He said they take matters like this very seriously.
 
DHS said they contract with a private Kansas company called DCCCA to do some foster care placements, including this one.
 
DCCCA would not answer any questions but sent a statement saying in part, "We have many safeguards and checks in place to ensure safety of all the foster families we support.  All of these safeguards are not foolproof in predicting human behavior."
  
Police said the boy was removed from the home.
  
The affidavit said Cowan admitted she knew what she was doing was wrong.

"She was so upset because he was a kid that she had to go to the doctor and get on anxiety medicine," Willyard said. 

Some people who went to court with Cowan said cases like this hurt a lot of people. 

They say despite the charges, they want people to know she's not a monster.