NORTH WILKESBORO
A student teacher from Appalachian State University has been charged with taking indecent liberties and engaging in a sexual act with a student at East Wilkes High School, where he had been working, officials said yesterday.
Walter Lowell Stiehm II, 23, of 607 Belle Ridge Road in North Wilkesboro, was arrested on the two felony charges Thursday. Authorities said yesterday that the investigation is continuing. They did not release the high-school student's age.
Stiehm is also facing a charge of breaking and entering charges in connection with an incident in Boone that happened in August, just days before school started.
Stiehm is a senior majoring in Spanish and education at ASU. He is still a student there, but he is no longer a student teacher.
ASU's policy calls for removing a student from a student-teaching position if the student is arrested or charged with inappropriate conduct, pending the resolution of the charges, university officials said.
Stiehm said in an interview yesterday that the charges involving the student are the result of a misunderstanding.
"People that actually know me, know better than that I would do something like this," he said.
He declined to say if he was involved a relationship with the student.
"I know unfortunately, she's going to be put in this as well," he said. "It's not her fault. Stuff got said."
The superintendent of Wilkes County Schools, Steve Laws, said that Stiehm started student teaching this semester and that investigators said that the incidents did not happen on campus. Laws said that ASU does the background checks on its student teachers.
A mandatory background check is required no more than six months before a student begins student teaching, according to an e-mail that ASU officials sent to the Winston-Salem Journal.
ASU uses Certiphi Screening Inc., a service that specializes in applicant-screening services, including background checks.
Court records would have shown that Stiehm had some traffic-related charges, including a driving-while-impaired case in Watauga County in 2007. In that case, he pleaded guilty, received 12 months' probation and was ordered to complete 24 hours of community service and 20 hours of substance-abuse treatment. Court records show that he completed his sentence.
The background check was done before Stiehm was charged with misdemeanor breaking and entering. A report from the Boone Police Department says that at 3:24 a.m. on Aug. 22, Stiehm was intoxicated and kicked in the front door of an off-campus apartment.
The man and woman in the apartment were awakened by their dog growling, then heard footsteps outside of their bedroom and saw a light flash turned on and off. The intruder ran when the resident opened the bedroom door.
A detective in the area saw Stiehm running away from the area after the call came in, stopped him and arrested him. Stiehm was an acquaintance of the man in the apartment, according to the report, which said that nothing was taken from the apartment.
Stiehm said yesterday that the Boone case had nothing to do with his student teaching and that he was not involved in the breaking and entering.
He is scheduled to appear in Wilkes District Court on Oct. 28 and in Watauga District Court on Nov. 23.
"People act as if I've already been convicted," he said.
mmitchell@wsjournal.com
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