Teacher of the Year finalist gets 14 years for sexual relationship with student she kept contacting

A former Colorado teacher and a 2025 state Teacher of the Year finalist was sentenced to 14 years in prison after authorities say she engaged in a sexual relationship with a student and reportedly continued contacting him after being criminally charged.

Tera Johnson-Swartz, a 45-year-old writer and former STEM School Highlands Ranch educator, pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of cybercrime, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office announced on March 19. Officials indicated that the cybercrime charge stemmed from her continued contact with the student. 

The former teacher was accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old, which was discovered around January 2025 when the student’s parents found texts containing sexually explicit content, according to The Denver Post. 

Johnson-Swartz, who had been recognized as one of seven finalists for Colorado’s Teacher of the Year just five months before the investigation, was ultimately charged in two separate cases. The first stemmed from a grand jury probe into the relationship in early 2025 and the second tied to her continued contact with the student. 

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Documents show the relationship started with texting but quickly escalated, with Johnson-Swartz giving the student cigarettes, letting him use her marijuana vape pen, and eventually engaging in a physical relationship, the local outlet reported.

She was reportedly suspended from the school once the allegations surfaced and was later fired and banned from campus.

Less than a month later, the involved student was caught on camera leaving campus and getting into a car that matched Johnson-Swartz’s vehicle, according to CBS. The teen reportedly admitted to investigators that his former teacher had picked him up and driven him to a nearby neighborhood.

The incident sparked an investigation, and in February 2025, detectives with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit arrested Johnson-Swartz on charges of kidnapping and contributing to the delinquency of a minor in connection with an inappropriate relationship with a student.

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Johnson-Swartz secured a $100,000 bond with the assistance of a professional bondsman and was released the following day, the outlet said. 

However, over the Fourth of July weekend that year, authorities were alerted by the student’s parents, who reported that the two were still in contact, according to CBS.

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The two reportedly encountered one another for two consecutive nights and Johnson-Swartz began calling and texting in the days that followed.

Johnson-Swartz was arrested again. In addition to her prison sentence, she was reportedly ordered to complete six years of sex offender probation after her release, which includes registering as a convicted sex offender.