Modesto teen back with her ex-teacher lover (VIDEO | 5 PICS)

A Central Valley school teacher has quit his job and left his wife and kids to move into an apartment with an 18-year-old student less than half his age.

The California teen who made national headlines when she and her high school teacher moved in together told a local television station that the two are back together.

Jordan Powers, 18, told a reporter for Sacramento TV station CBS13  that she and James Hooker, 41, are a couple again. The interview was conducted on the steps of Hooker's apartment in Modesto through a screen door.

In an ABC news interview two weeks ago, Powers said she had called off the relationship with Hooker after allegations that the teacher sexually abused another student more than a decade ago. Powers packed her bags and moved  to Ohio with her mom.

Tammie Powers, mother, told the Modesto Bee that she thought the two were seeing each other again.  After they moved away, Hooker called Jordan "relentlessly," she said.

"She left on her own. She hired a cab and booked her own flight," Tammie Powers said.

"It is awful," she said. "This is what pedophiles, predators do. They isolate them from family."

Neighbors say Powers moved back in recently.

Hooker was arrested on April 6 for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student he allegedly met at a high school conference in 1998.  He entered a not guilty plea and remains out on bail.

After the break-up, Powers  said Hooker had lied about the affair and the student had "lost everything for this guy" in the ABC interview.

"I lost my senior year. I gave up all my friends at high school because they didn't agree with me," she said.

18-year-old Jordan Powers’ dreams of true love were smashed when her 41-year-old ex-teacher, and now ex-boyfriend, James Hooker was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting another teenager 14 years ago.

In February, Hooker quit his job at James Enochs High School and left his wife and three children to be with Powers. She dropped out of high school.  The two told national talk shows that they didn't have a sexual relationship until she turned 18.  That point is under investigation.

Enochs High School student Jordan Powers, 18, left, and James Hooker, 41, talk.