Teacher teased eighth-grader before sex on Instagram

Inset: Michelle Solis (Butte County District Attorney’s Office). Background: The middle school where she sexually abused one of her students (Google Maps).

A California teacher who admitted to sexually abusing one of her eighth-graders on the day of his middle school graduation has been sentenced to four years in prison.

In April, Michelle Christine Solis, 46, changed her plea from not guilty to a guilty plea in one count of sex with a minor, the Butte County District Attorney’s Office said. On Thursday, she was sentenced retroactively by Butte County Superior Court Judge Michael Deems.

The verdict in this case was originally scheduled for June 6.

At the time of the incident, Solis was the boy’s teacher at Sycamore Junior High School in Gridley, a small city in Northern California about 56 miles north of Sacramento.

In the weeks before his eighth-grade graduation, the now-convicted woman befriended the boy on Instagram and began messaging him, prosecutors said. Evidence presented by prosecutors showed the teacher sent the child four explicit photos of herself. Then, on the day of the boy’s graduation, the two had “sexual intercourse” in her classroom, according to a recent press release.

The teacher made sure to lock her classroom door, prosecutors claimed in an earlier press release on the case.

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“Rumors and copies of the photos began circulating in the Gridley community in October 2023,” the prosecutor’s office said. “A Gridley Police investigation ensued and investigators contacted the boy and reviewed the contents of his phone. There they found communications between Solis and the boy, including two explicit photos of Solis that matched descriptions the boy had previously provided.”

Solis was arrested on November 13, 2023. She was immediately released on $15,000 bail and was free pending sentencing until the defense requested another extension of the penalty phase on June 27.

Meanwhile, community members in Gridley were outraged that Solis had the audacity to show up at Little League games while out on bail, according to a report by Chico-based CBS and CW affiliate KHSL. Outraged parents hung anti-“pedo” signs on chain-link fences in protest.

During the sentencing hearing, the woman’s lawyer tried unsuccessfully to obtain a significantly lighter sentence.

More law and crime coverage: School employees and alleged best friends who attended each other’s weddings are accused of sexually abusing students

The defense attorney asked the judge for probation, describing the crime between the teacher and the student as merely “an act.”

Prosecutors vehemently denied this characterization.

Prosecutors argued for the maximum sentence – and got it, after citing the nearly 30-year age difference between the defendant and the victim, Solis’ “position as a trusted member of the community” and a pattern of behavior that amounted to “grooming.”

Prosecutors also pointed out that Solis gave the boy “special treatment” at school, that the two had made “numerous contacts through social media” before all was said and done, and that the teacher asked the child to delete her messages and the photos she had sent him.

The court ruled that Solis must now register as a sex offender and stay away from the victim for ten years.

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