You’d never know it by the mellow back-to-school atmosphere Tuesday morning, but a trusted Woodbury Math and Science Academy teacher who mingled with teenagers here for seven years is now charged with soliciting underage sex online.

“There were absolutely no signs whatsoever. None. That’s what’s so concerning,” the school’s Executive Director Kate Hinton said of 44-year-old Jamey Scott Ralph Strand, who taught physical education and coached basketball and badminton.

“There were no complaints or concerns,” Hinton added. “No one in our community has come forward since the arrest. He had no disciplinary record.”

Strand, who started at Math and Science Academy in 2018, was dismissed Aug. 26.

Two days earlier, Strand, of  River Falls, was jailed in Mankato on a felony charge of “Soliciting a Child or Someone Believed to be a Child Through Electronic Communication to Engage in Sexual Conduct.”

The charge carries a maximum five-year prison sentence, a $10,000 fine or both.

According to the Blue Earth County criminal complaint against him, Strand drove to Mankato expecting to finally meet a 14-year-old 9th-grade girl. They’d connected almost two weeks earlier on the mobile chat app Kik.

Once he picked her up in Mankato, the plan was to drive to his camper in Iowa to have sex there “as his wife was going to be gone for a few days,” the complaint says.

Strand was about to find out that the 14-year-old 9th grade girl he thought he’d met on Kik was actually Mankato undercover Detective William Hullopeter.

Graphic details 

Strand discussed it all with Hullopeter’s Kik persona between Aug. 14 and Aug. 24,  including some extremely intimate and graphic sexual and anatomical details. Examples: how he could “teach her sexual stuff,” how he was “okay” with their age difference if she was, what specific sex acts he wanted to perform, the size of his manhood, her bra size, and whether she’d ever worn a thong or “taken naughty pics.”

Strand chickened out of an Aug. 19 rendezvous, but when he promised he was on his way again Aug. 24,  Mankato Police set up a traffic-surveillance stand on Hwy. 169 north of town.

Once Strand’s car was spotted, an officer followed him to St. Peter, where he was pulled over and arrested without incident. Later, at the Blue Earth County Jail, he agreed to speak to officers without a lawyer present and admitted the information in the complaint.

Strand also admitted connecting similarly with two other girls younger than 16.

After an Aug. 26 initial court appearance before Blue Earth County District Judge Krista Kass, Strand was released Aug. 29 on a conditional $100,000 bond, accompanied by an active arrest warrant. 

According to court records, Attorney Zachary Webster, of Mankato’s Birkholz & Associates law firm, represented Strand at the bail hearing and signed a formal certificate of appearance Aug. 28. A Woodbury News Net voice mail to the Birkholz firm inviting comment was not returned 

Strand’s next hearing was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Sept. 4 .

According to Minnesota Court Records Online, there are no other county criminal, civil, family, probate or mental health cases under Strand’s name statewide.

School’s Response

In an interview in her office before the school opened Tuesday, Executive Director Hinton said police first informed Math and Science Academy of Strand’s arrest on Aug. 26, the same day he was dismissed.

Mankato Public Safety officials have not requested additional information or provided updates since, Hinton said, adding: “If asked, we will cooperate fully as the investigation progresses. But we have not been asked, at least not yet.”

School counselors have been available from the start for anyone associated with the school who might need them, although no one had requested help there either as of Tuesday morning.

Two letters about cyber-security and related issues also had been sent to the families of all 650-plus Math and Science Academy students by the end of the school day Sept. 2.

Front and center in the letters is a list of recommended cybersecurity conversation-starters between parents and their kids:

• Never post personal information or inappropriate content
• Explaining the risks of sexting and the permanence of online data
• How to avoid online predators with privacy controls like restricting apps’ location access
• Learning the warning signs of an online predator
• Reminding kids that safe adults won’t ask them to keep secrets or disrespect their boundaries
• Help kids identify a trusted adult they can go to for help 
• Discuss steps they can take if a friend confides in them about inappropriate behavior online
• Explain that minors shouldn’t disseminate sexual-abuse material because it’s illegal
• Even if a child has already shared sexual-abuse material or been involved with inappropriate interactions, it’s not too late to tell an adult and get help
• Discuss cyberbullying.

The letters also include the link to the cybersecurity group Know2Protect’s website: https://www.dhs.gov/know2protect/take-action.

“We’re working to be sure that our families know we have the resources to support our students,” Hinton says as her interview concludes. “And we always want to know if there is any kind of disturbing or concerning behavior by any person associated with Math and Science Academy.”

Reassuring send-off

During a brief walk around the school’s grounds afterward, a Woodbury News Net visitor is struck by how little Math & Science Academy looks like a traditional public school and how much it looks like a small, deeply established, densely landscaped housing cluster.

Lush trees, thick shrubs and rock gardens are everywhere, and everyone just seems so quiet and peaceful, even the dozens of kids milling around in larger groups on raised concrete building entryways with steps flanked by boulders. 

Asked whether it’s always this serene here, one girl thinks a second, then nods her head a little and smiles.

“Yeah, it pretty much is,” she says. “Well, maybe some of it is that there aren’t as many of us here right now – only the middle-school kids start today. The high school kids don’t get here till tomorrow.” 

She ponders the question a bit yet again, finally declaring with another smile before the visitor departs: “Nah, it’s not really that so much. It really is pretty much always like this.”