A FINALIST for a Teacher of the Year award groomed a pupil with drugs and music, and continued messaging the teen even after being charged with felony kidnapping and sexual abuse.

Tera Johnson-Swartz, 45, from Colorado was sentenced to 14 years in prison – first for her relationship with a 16-year-old student, and then for defying a court order and continuing to contact the boy.

NINTCHDBPICT001070505377The former teacher was 44 years old when she began to text her pupil, who was 16.Credit: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office
 
NINTCHDBPICT001070505376Whilst secretly grooming a child, Johnson-Swartz was named as a finalist for Colorado’s Teacher of the Year awardCredit: X/@CO Dept of Education
“She is pretty stupid, I’m not gonna lie,” the victim told police after her second arrest.

“She threw away her entire life for me”.

The former teacher at STEM School Highlands Ranch, near Denver, began texting and sharing playlists with the pupil in 2024, when the victim was just 16 years old.

She plied him with cigarettes, and let him puff on her marijuana vape pen, before they started having sex, according to court documents.

Around this time, Johnson-Swartz was named as one of seven finalists for Colorado’s Teacher of the Year award.

Five months later in January 2025, her dark relationship with a teenage pupil was discovered and reported to the police.

She was immediately suspended, and later fired from the school and banned from the grounds.

However, less than a month later, security cams show Johnson-Swartz picking up the student from school and driving away with him.

She was charged with felony kidnapping and arrested, before being released the next day to return to court at a later date.

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Johnson-Swartz then stalked the student to back-to-back concerts of one of the bands they had shared in their playlists.

The teen later told investigators: “It was really weird. I was going there expecting to have a really great time.

“And then I just see her in front of the line, like 30 feet up”

In one interview, the teen said his former teacher cornered him and said: “Just say you love me”.

The student said they were not surprised the 45-year-old struggled to stay away, saying she is an “unstable woman” who had “already ruined her life, and […] keeps just making it worse.”

The former teacher was arrested a second time, and denied bail.

Douglas County District Attorney George Brauchler said Johnson-Swartz is a “predator” who will now have to “live with that label for decades”.