The trial date for a former Seventh-day Adventist School teacher accused of having sex with a female teenage student has been continued for the third time.

Scott Allen Spies faces a charge of third-degree rape of a child and two counts of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor for allegedly having sex with the student.

Spies, charged in February of 2010, was originally to go on trial Dec. 6. But at the request of Spies attorney, Jeffrey Cohen, and the King County Prosecutors’ office, Superior Court Judge Mary Roberts moved the trial to Feb. 14, then to March 17,

This week, Roberts continued the trial to May 9.

According to a note in Spies’ file at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, Cohen and prosecutors have asked for the continuances to work out Spies’ restitution, that is, what the court would require of the former teacher to compensate the girl for damages allegedly done her. Local attorneys have said the note strongly suggests a plea bargain is in the works, and that Spies is unlikely to stand trial at all.

Spies who had taught at the Auburn school since 2009, pleaded innocent March 3, 2010. If convicted on all three counts, he could spend as many as five years in prison. Spies is free on $150,000 bail.

The school fired Spies after he allegedly admitted to the school’s dean of women students what he had done.

Spies graduated from the Auburn Adventist Academy in 1979 and has a masters of arts degree in teaching. Before teaching at the academy, he taught eighth grade at nearby Buena Vista Elementary School, from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2008. Buena Vista is a Seventh-day Adventist school.