'She showed him around, then there was a hug,' Cummings said. She picked him up in her car, but instead of going to Ligon Middle School, Cummings said, Mackie took the boy to her North Raleigh house. In June 2000, Mackie asked the boy to help her move school computers. His parents, Cummings said, were thrilled by Mackie's attention to their son's education. Cummings said Mackie often took the boy out to restaurants and gave him rides home. For his seventh-grade year, Mackie invited the boy, then 13, to join a journalism class. In November, she was awarded national board certification, a rare honor.Ĭummings said that while Mackie was at Ligon, she taught a sixth-grade class that included a boy in whom she took an interest. Parents and other teachers admired her devotion to students and her gift for igniting a love of reading. Mackie taught in the Wake County public schools for 18 years, first at Underwood Elementary School, then at Ligon Middle School and for the past year at Broughton High School. She sat at the defense table stiff and unmoving as Assistant District Attorney Howard Cummings told the story. Mackie arrived with her husband, Dal, and two grown children. If you incarcerate her for every day you can, you cannot punish her more than she has herself.'Ĭourtroom 3A filled with Mackie's friends and family, courthouse regulars and other observers for the sentencing Tuesday.

'She will never teach again, which is the most important thing in her life. He noted the waves of support for Mackie from former students and their parents, and he said Mackie is full of shame and guilt for her actions. Cheshire V, said that Mackie took responsibility for what happened and that her illness was not an excuse. They called her a sexual deviant who took advantage of the trust she held as a teacher. Stephens granted Mackie's request for an extra day of freedom to consult with her doctors, who have been treating her for bipolar disorder, the mental illness once known as manic-depression.Īt the hearing, the boy's parents urged Stephens to punish Mackie for her 'rape' of their son. Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald W. Mackie, 47, was sentenced at a hearing Tuesday for her May 22 guilty plea to the felony. Mackie, at one time praised, honored and beloved for her skills in opening the world of literature to hundreds of Wake County pupils, must turn herself in today for a prison sentence of at least eight months for having sex two years ago with a 13-year-old boy, a former student.

Judge: 'A male would have gotten 20 years'īetty Mackie is sentenced to eight to 10 months in prison for having sex with a middle school student of hers. Fallen a long way (Female teacher convicted of sex crimes aginst young boy)

Betty g mackie raleigh