iBoink? Teacher tablet troubles trump student woes
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If program glitches, limited wireless access, and delayed roll-out were the biggest problems emerging from the tablet computers Charlottesville City Schools issued to students, a more "adult" issue arose from the city's distribution of electronic tablets to teachers.
According to sources who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, the trouble began last year after a teacher used an instructional room at Walker Upper Elementary School for a sexual tryst. She later emailed images from that and at least one other costume-laden sexual encounter to another Walker teacher.
The wardrobe-happy teacher resigned after administrators became aware of the activity, which did not involve students or other minors, the sources say. While City schools spokesperson Cass Cannon declined to confirm the extra-curricular activity that caused the shake-up at Walker, she confirmed that the instructor at the center of the controversy resigned last August.
Sources say the second teacher merely viewed the unusual images last summer on her school-issued Apple iPad, then showed the photos to several colleagues. She was put on administrative leave last fall, according to sources, who claim that the basis for the suspension was misuse of school equipment– the iPad– by viewing and distributing the pictures.
It turns out that sharing prohibited material on a school-issued tablet violates the terms-of-use contracts teachers sign prior to receipt of the iPads. The second teacher resigned in January for what spokesperson Cannon would describe only as "personal reasons."
Due to the intimate nature of the matter, the lack of criminal charges, the lack of an on-the-record source, and the lack of clear public records on the matter, the Hook is withholding both teachers' identities. A friend of the second teacher wants, however, to voice fairness concerns.
"They treated her so badly," says the former colleague of the second teacher, a "widely respected" woman who allegedly received the offending images without warning. The colleague says the second teacher was such an opponent of in-school carnality that she had already notified the school's principal after receiving an earlier round of trysting photos at the end of the 2010-2011 school year.
The former colleague asserts that administrators were able to oust the second teacher because in showing the pictures from her school-issued iPad, she may have violated her technology contract and thereby voided her legal right to preserve her job.
None of the other teachers who viewed the photos were punished, says the former colleague, outraged that students would lose a valued teacher just for showing images which had arrived via a private email account– images of adults, sent to adults, and in some cases depicting three adults.
"The teacher was there for a decade, never had a bad mark in her personnel folder, and was widely loved by the kids," says the colleague.
The second teacher did not respond to a reporter's repeated requests for comment; the allegedly trysting teacher, reached by phone, declined comment.
20 comments
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So, a teacher has a sexual tryst in a classroom, the principal is notified at the end of the school year about photos from the event and the guilty teacher resigns in August? Why didn't the principal fire the guilty teacher immediately? What went on in that room all summer long? And what if the 2nd teacher who was fired for misuse of school equipment never told the principal? Guess there'd be lots of hanky panky at school all year long! I don't know which is worse, the teacher doing hanky panky in the classroom or the firing of a teacher for doing the right thing and trying to protect children from such appalling actions of another teacher.
This seems to be the "shoot the messenger" syndrome that's epidemic in the workplace now. I have to wonder if the second teacher was forced out for knowing too much. If that's what happened, the administration should be ashamed of themselves.
What's with the Vargas girl artwork, chap?
R.I.P.: Tim Horton
That's Mad Men graphic Yo.
Appalled, cipals do not have the authority to fire anyone, the school board does after it meets on the subject behind closed doors.
"The colleague says the second teacher was such an opponent of in-school carnality that she had already notified the school's principal after receiving an earlier round of trysting photos at the end of the 2010-2011 school year." She should have stepped back after that and not distributed any more of it.
"None of the other teachers who viewed the photos were punished, says the former colleague, outraged that students would lose a valued teacher just for showing images which had arrived via a private email account– images of adults, sent to adults, and in some cases depicting three adults." "Sources say the second teacher merely viewed the unusual images last summer on her school-issued Apple iPad, then showed the photos to several colleagues."Did any of those teachers help her to distribute it? Three adults? Are any of them staff, too? If they are, are they still working?
must be from the "new art director", LOL!
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"cipals " = "principals"So sorry.
@appalled - perhaps the tryst was with an administrator?
@Cville Eye -- if they "viewed the images" on school equipment, is it Time to Toast'Em?? because the toasted teacher, apparently, showed the images seeking confirmation that they are an actionable problem? is that right?
See if I got this straight: the school gave the children and teachers iPads, then expects them not to send utilize the machines for any personal use, nor send any personal emails or, worse, expects to own those emails if they do send them? Orwell would have been able to point out the totalitarian travesty of an administrator being proud of firing that teacher! As a lifelong Pastafarian, I'm suggesting that we punish her by rubbing warm spaghetti sauce all over the exposed bits shown off so prettily in those illegally distributed images - or those images not distributed according to the terms of abuse contract she was coerced into signing ... the teachers had no alternative, literally, to signing that "terms of abuse" contract if they wanted to go on teaching. And some of them got sacked. And as for the principal who didn't manage the sitatuation? Toast him to a school or better yet, a one on one tutoring project out past Free Union -- where he can put his talents for MISMANAGEMENT of personnel to an even more extraordinarily ill-considered flagrant example of personal misbehavior while herding goats for the Tibbi-tans.
@Christian Gehman, "..apparently, showed the images seeking confirmation that they are an actionable problem" If was not the teacher's business to find out if the pictures were actionable. After the pictures were shown to the principal, she had no other obligations in the matter and should have gotten back to work.
"...administrator being proud of firing that teacher..." Administrators do not fire anyone. The school board hires and fires all staff.
"...expects to own those emails if they do send them..." Actually emails sent through public property can be requested for public inspection through FOIA as in Michael Mann.
Teachers are not required to use the school system's kPads, they can use their own and keep everything personal.
"...the teachers had no alternative, literally, to signing that "terms of abuse" contract if they wanted to go on teaching. And some of them got sacked." Are you making this up?
@eye The principal is the one responsible for the mess, in my view. And should be assigned to one on one tutoring for a year. The other teachers who viewed the images shown by the second teacher also should be sacked -- why stop at one? Clearly the teachers had to sign a contract to use the equipment and to go on teaching ... but just because the outcome reminds me of the intrusion of Big Sister into our daily lives doesn't mean anyone else has to agree. Many feel safer knowing that "Big Sister is watching YOU." Many don't actually believe that requiring teachers to sign a contract of use relating to an essential, expensive instructional tool -- a contract that gives Big Sister the right to snoop -- and would give Big Sister the right to snoop even on a computer owned by the teacher if the teacher was using the school system's instructional software -- is an unnecessary infringement of personal freedom. Fairly often, such infringements are seen as a good idea by people whose paranoid delusions inspire them to feel threatened by normal human behavior. Often those same people will encourage a school system or a corporation to pay lawyers to write "terms of use" contracts that let them bully their employees. With most email programs, if someone sends you an image, it's hard not to see it when you open the email. Two teachers were lost. I assume they were competent enough to get hired. I don't see any due process here -- I see an assumption of guilt that will probably prevent those two from teaching in the future. From my point of view, if the principal and the members of the school board viewed the emails in question, using equipment supplied by the school system -- then they too were tainted and might just as well resign. The problem perhaps lies with the terms of use contract, which I haven't seen, and which probably only provides that improper use "may be grounds for dismissal." Maybe this doesn't look like the death penalty for a minor traffic stop -- I'd have to see the pictures. And meanwhile, I'd at least recommend suspending everyone who did see them. Nip this in the bud. How the school board might take any further action after suspending itself for just looking at the pictures is a good question. There's little information here -- all we know is that two teachers are gone. I'm a little more likely to believe they were railroaded than that they should have been sacked. Other people, faced with the same total lack of information, prefer to believe that the principal and the Board acted appropriately -- startlingly enough, most of this group feels they "don't need" the facts.
@eye -- Rather than sacking two teachers behind closed doors and sequestering the pictures to prevent tainting the public's notion of our schools' purity of intention, maybe it would be a good idea to get both sacked teachers, the principal, and all members of the School Board that voted in favor of the sackings to pose on the Downtown Mall for a day? -- with the pictures projected on a screen behind them! and with screen prints available to anyone who wants to buy one! ... before we let the matter fade quietly into the obloquy it truly deserves.
My understanding is that even though supplying an iPad to every student might ultimately be a cost effective way to provide instructional materials, it's never going to happen because the majority of middle school and high school students think fondly of, reminisce about, or imagine the secondary sexual characteristics of other human beings about once every thirty seconds, no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be. And there's no telling what kind of images the students might send via email using school property.
"The principal is the one responsible for the mess, in my view." Unfortunately your view has nothing to do with it. The law says it's the school board.
The Principal neither MONITORED the situation before it blew up, nor MANAGED it after it happened. Something is wrong there, and most likely sacking two teachers won't be the end of it. Time to get an independent interrogator to investigate ALL THE iPADS IN THE ENTIRE SCHOOL SYSTEM. Maybe develop a surveillance program to be used to monitor all teachers, not just in the school system, but that could be extended to all teachers (and students) in the Commonwealth. The surveillance could be performed electronically from a remote location -- somewhere in the Philippines, maybe -- or on Formosa. These two no doubt excessively prurient teachers were just the tip of the iceberg! They weren't just chopped lettuce! The danger to our high school children is real! Great day! The high school kids in Albemarle County might actually learn about sex before they're old enough to join the Coast Guard!
I find it interesting that the article portrays the teacher who showed the pictures to other staff as a victim as if she wrote it herself. This version of the story leaves out that the teacher who "reported" that the other teacher was involved in various acts was most likely spreading gossip instead of being an upstanding citizen. The teacher also was most likely showing these photographs during school hours on a school device since such action was taken. The administrator seemed to act appropriatly by notifying the school board and personnel department when the situation impacted the school and possibly students. It seems there are several holes in this story and was told in order for the teacher who was the "reporter" to blame others for her unprofessionalism and poor choice of showing inaapropriate visuals to coworkers!!!!
@ Jane Doe -- impossible to deliver any cogent or persuasive commentary without ACTUALLY SEEING THE PHOTOGRAPHS, don't you think? And I still don't understand why all who viewed the tainted pictures -- other teachers, the principal, and any members of the school board who viewed them -- don't believe they should resign immediately, Or perhaps they are just waiting to be fired? Didn't the principal pass them up the chain of command? At what point in the chain of command at a school system is it permissible to view such pictures, and not get fired? Or asked to resign? I wish someone would post the pictures on the Internet - asap. I'd like to know what those teachers got up to -- I mean, maybe they were just rehearsing for a skit in the school's Variety Show ....
Maybe a representative sample of parents -- a dozen or so? -- could view the pictures and make a decision? I might have thought they were perfectly harmless, and I am sure my old friend Conway David would have snickered all the way to Alberene.