posted
My brother has been a high school chemistry teacher for about 7 years now. In general, he likes teaching and he gets along well with his students.
Today the principal and associate principal trooped into my brother's classroom and removed his computer. Apparently some students have said that there is porn on my brother's computer.
My brother would never look at porn on his school computer. For one, the internet htere is filtered so he would have to jump through hoops to do so. For another, he has cable at home. Why do it at school? For another, he knows that all the websites he visits are logged.
My brother says that he doesn't log out of his computer when he leaves his computer. So, he's thinking the students either downloaded the stuff while he was away or put it on there via floppy or cd. The problem here is that if the students did put porn on his computer, it's going to be his word against these anonymous kids that he didn't put it on there himself.
My brother is a member of good standing in the teacher's union. Thank god for them, because if push comes to shove, they will pay for any legal fees, should the need arise and they will act as an advocate for him in any disciplinary procedings.
As it stands now, his computer is being looked at. Apparently, the way this works is that students(there are two) who accuse the teacher of something like this are kept anonymous. I understand this, and I support this policy. The bad part, to me, is that any students who make accusations like this need not ever fear for any kind of reprisal. Thus, there is no incentive for vindictive students to not do something like this, and accusations of this nature will follow someone around forever, so no matter what happens, my brother gets screwed.
From what my brother was saying, while this kind of thing isn't common, it's not uncommon either. So, hopefully, the administration will understand. I told him in no uncertain terms, that he needs to log out of !@$@$! computer so that people can't just walk up and screw around with it. Sigh.
Anyways. Thanks for listening.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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This is why I teach where I do. As much grief as I get from some students (and some parents), that sort of garbage I do not get.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
That bites so bad. And the fact that it doesn't make sense for him to do it at work when it's so hard and so easy at home probably won't matter. Dumb kids, if they did plant it you know they don't realize that it's not just a joke or getting back at a teacher they don't like, it's potentially ruining his career for the rest of his life if the administration doesn't believe him.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
If it turns out he's been framed, he should get a lawyer and and look into what's possible to bring the people who did to court. Slander, tortious interference, whatever. He'd be a hero to the teacher's union.
There's a lot of ways to get the names - I bet the school can't keep them secret.
posted
"If it turns out he's been framed, he should get a lawyer and and look into what's possible to bring the people who did to court. Slander, tortious interference, whatever. He'd be a hero to the teacher's union."
The thing is, he should not have to hire a lawyer, the teacher's union should do something on his behalf. Like insurance companies, it is often hard to get actual action from the union. Sad, but true for many, so many do have to hire lawyers.
Too bad his word isn't good enough. This is just very sad.
[ November 16, 2004, 10:20 PM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I was talking about after he's cleared. The union will help with defense, but I think this calls for offense. I hope the union is more helpful than you've seen in the past.
posted
If they do find anything on his computer, he should get the nerd in charge of looking at the logs to fo dig them up to see if they could trace the source.
Chances are, that after investigation, the kids' story will be discredited.
But I still wish him good luck. I don't undertand what would drive somebody to do that sort of thing.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
Kids in general are short-sighted. This is true with regard to their future, their health, etc. What drives someone to do this is anger or even merely dislike/disrespect, coupled with an inability to grasp that a career could be jeopardized by these actions, a livelihood could be lost, and a much-needed teacher could be lost to education--and in Central Florida, we REALLY need all the good teachers we can get.
(There is also the general human inability to see other people as being as fully real as you are. I ran into a kid downtown last week while picking up a pizza. I was wearing shorts and a T-Shirt, and I had a cap on backward like I usually do when not in school. She looked so shocked, and I don't know if it was my unprofessional appearance, the fact that I eat pizza, or even the fact of my existence when school is not in session that shocked her most. I don't think kids are more solipsistic than most adults, necessarily, but throw that tendency in together with an inability to perceive long-term consequences to actions, and you have a dangerous combination.)
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Depending on how thorough of a search the IT people want to do and the size of his hard drive, and the speed with wich his superiors decide to fill him in, he could hear things either tomorrow or a week from now or a month from now. If he doesn't hear anything by Thursday, he's going to prod. I'll let you guys what happens.
Thanks, again, for listening.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Because the same problems arise at other jobs too. Kids are not the only ones who lack good judgement....
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
SS, has your brother contacted his union yet? If not, he should. Even if nothing comes of the investigation, it's good to keep them aprised of this sort of situation.
I wonder if the students will be allowed to remain anonymous once your brother is cleared. If I were him, I would hire a lawyer and absolutely sue both the students and their parents. I think that the school administrators could be compelled to reveal the names - I certainly hope so. This type of thing infuriates me. It's terrible to take advantage of a system that is designed to keep you safe. It undermines the entire process and makes it more and more likely that a legitimate claim will be ignored or disbelieved.
Frankly, I don't think these kinds of kids care if they are ruining someone's life. I had a situation in my old job (VP of an online K-12 education company) where a teenage female student accused a male teacher of making sexual advances towards her through the chat feature. What this girl didn't know was that we required teachers to save the contents of their chats and we had concrete proof that she was lying. I spoke to her mother and it came out that this is not the first time she had made false accusations. I was incensed, especially when the mother tried to laugh off the incident as teenage shenanigans. I explained to the mother that the teacher has grounds for a lawsuit against her, as well as her daughter. I also explained that making false accusations hurts girls who really have been victimized - it makes it much less likely that they'll be believed. I changed the girl's schedule so that she had only female teachers and took away all of her extracurriculars. She was also not accepted back into the program the next year. I was lucky to be in a position where I could impose such consequences - most administrators cannot. It made the teacher very wary, so much so that he disabled the private chat option from then on.
Posts: 3037 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote:I would hire a lawyer and absolutely sue both the students and their parents
Generally parents aren't liable for the torts of their children. A good (read: creative) lawyer will find a way to get them on the complaint. Especially if they have general liability insurance.
posted
Storm, that is really terrible of the students to accuse him of this. I hope he's cleared soon.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote: SS, has your brother contacted his union yet? If not, he should. Even if nothing comes of the investigation, it's good to keep them aprised of this sort of situation.
I'm pretty sure he has, but I'll nudge him just to make sure.
quote: I wonder if the students will be allowed to remain anonymous once your brother is cleared. If I were him, I would hire a lawyer and absolutely sue both the students and their parents. I think that the school administrators could be compelled to reveal the names - I certainly hope so. This type of thing infuriates me. It's terrible to take advantage of a system that is designed to keep you safe. It undermines the entire process and makes it more and more likely that a legitimate claim will be ignored or disbelieved.
I brought this possibility up when I was speaking to my brother. From the way my brother described it to me, if left on its own, the situation will never reach court. Unless it reaches court, the students remain anonymous.
If my brother does take it to court, again, it's his word against theirs.
Though we didn't get into it, I imagine the school would not look on any legal action undertaken by my brother very favorably, since it would cause the school to quite possibly have negative publicity. And, again, we didn't talk about this, if he does take it to court, depending on the verdict and judgement, he would probably be screwing himself, not just with bad publicity, but perhaps forcing the school to fire him just to cover their ass.
So, I am ambivalent that he will take it to court, but will definitely push him to talk to the union lawyer.
quote:
Frankly, I don't think these kinds of kids care if they are ruining someone's life. I had a situation in my old job (VP of an online K-12 education company) where a teenage female student accused a male teacher of making sexual advances towards her through the chat feature. What this girl didn't know was that we required teachers to save the contents of their chats and we had concrete proof that she was lying. I spoke to her mother and it came out that this is not the first time she had made false accusations. I was incensed, especially when the mother tried to laugh off the incident as teenage shenanigans. I explained to the mother that the teacher has grounds for a lawsuit against her, as well as her daughter. I also explained that making false accusations hurts girls who really have been victimized - it makes it much less likely that they'll be believed. I changed the girl's schedule so that she had only female teachers and took away all of her extracurriculars. She was also not accepted back into the program the next year. I was lucky to be in a position where I could impose such consequences - most administrators cannot. It made the teacher very wary, so much so that he disabled the private chat option from then on. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good for you. I really hope the admins of my brother's school are as supportive of him, but I am really afraid they won't be.
My brother is kind of freaked out and confused by this whole thing. I just reread my initial post and realized that I wasn't clear. He doesn't for sure know if there is any porn on his school computer. The only way that it could be there is if the kids put it there, and why would the kids accuse him if they hadn't planted any evidence on his computer? Are the kids really so stupid as to accuse him and not think the school would not check the computer?
Hopefully, these are really stupid kids and nothing will be found and he'll start logging out of his computer and this will all fade away as a bad memory.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Generally parents aren't liable for the torts of their children. A good (read: creative) lawyer will find a way to get them on the complaint. Especially if they have general liability insurance.
I know, Dag. I mostly wanted to shake that complacent mother up. I agree that a "good" lawyer could find a way to stick it to the parents, though.
I am very passionate about this. False accusations are so harmful to actual victims and so helpful to sexual predators.
It's entirely possible that the kids are that stupid - I've seen it before. I think that the kids should forfeit the protection of anonymity if they are proven wrong. It's terrible that the administration would refuse to impose consequences on liars. What happens if there is another teacher who does have porn on his computer and is showing it to students. All he has to do it point to your brother's case and say, "Those kids were lying and so are these." By refusing to back up an innocent teacher, they are both protecting guilty teachers and leaving the door open for more unfounded accusations.
posted
I am a teen, I like to... 'poke fun' at teachers and other students... But, never would I do something to this extent.
But, let us use some common sense here... These students who accused him, how would they know if it was there? When did they get on? Would the teacher have consented to their 'common and miscelanneous' use of the computer?
It's all just pointing more to them.
Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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And then other kids found it. In that case, the kids reporting it would not be framing him. And the situation would be a lot more complicated.
Posts: 438 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
that is terrible. Hopefully, the students did not actually put anything on there...so when the computer is checked out, it will come back clean. Maybe they just thought it would be funny to make the claim.
These sorts of false accusations are the fear of many male teachers I know. With that sort of thing an accusation can stick with you forever, even if it is clearly false.
posted
Hmm. To really pin this on him, they're going to need a trail.
If part of the accusation is that he surfed porn on the internet, then the Network Admin at the school should have a log of where he went. Most firewalls come with the ability to track the sessions that pass through them, and especially those that have filters to block certain IP addresses or content.
If the source matches up as being from his computer, and the destination matches up with being from a porn site, then the timestamp on the traffic needs to be checked to see if your brother had physical access to that computer when the porn was downloaded.
If the school can't provide this level of security, that's just neglectful.
The IT folks should also take a look at how secure the computer's physical location is. How easy is it for students to get to it? Can it be reached from other computers on the same network, or from different networks within the school?
Even if porn is found on his computer, it should be second nature for the IT guys to check where it came from and when it was accessed.
posted
And password cracking is as easy as inserting a disk and booting up. (ie, Physical security is important, too.)
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
They gave him his computer back today. Nothing was found on his computer. Logs showed nothing. Sigh.
I passed along the idea of involving the union lawyer to my brother, but he's extremely doubtful that that is going to happen, basically for the reasons that I already gave.
I encouraged him very strongly to at least talk to the AP and principal and see if they can't make sure that not only the students but, perhaps, the parents of the students understand that accusations like this are serious and could have serious legal consequences for not only the student but the student's family...but more than likely that's not going to happen either. 'Gosh, we really thought we saw porn on his computer. Are you saying we shouldn't have told you?'
At the very least, he now understands that he needs to log out of his computer whenever he leaves it.
*shakes head* The whole thing is ridiculous, and my brother's reputation is sullied, no matter what happens.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
That's good that your brother won't face any consequences. Even if he doesn't find out who accused him, it seems that the principal should be obligated to have a little chat with the students who made this up.
Still, as you said, he will still be regarded with suspicion by those who knew about the accusations. It would be best if the students were made to come forward and apologize publicly, I think.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I wish, but unfortunately, that would be seen as the school discouraging students to come forward. And, again, it's not like the students, unless they're really stupid, won't swear up and down that they thought they saw porn.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I'm glad everything worked out for your brother.
Is there any chance that the principal will at least be bringing in the students' parents to discuss the false accusations?
Posts: 472 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
First of all, I'm glad that those charges are dropped and your brother's cleared.
Second, about this whole thing: How did the students say they found out about the porn?! Is your brother's computer a desktop that he keeps in his office, or a laptop and he carries it with him? I won't make any more assumptions about this, it's better to wait for the answer!
And thirdly, I totally agree with Scott R, such things should be very easy to check when a firewall guards the local network.
And last but not least: Tell your brother to keep teaching! The world needs good teachers! Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I haven't read the thread yet, but the following chat transcript is EXACTLY why someone would want to teach. I've finished my long-term sub in a 7th grade English classroom, but have continued an e-mail mentoring relationship with one student (With her parent's knowledge and permission, of course!). She wants to publish an essay she wrote.
Names have been changed.
former student: i sent the story i added on to the short paragraph JennyG: Cool. I am so impressed with all the work you are putting into this piece. JennyG: What drives you to dedicate yourself to it? former student: me to ive never thought i would work this hard on a story former student: i really dont know JennyG: You're acting like all the writers I know who are publishing their work. former student: WOW former student: i really never thought i could do something like this but im going to do i know i can JennyG: It's true! But it's tough... You might have to send your piece out to a lot of places before it is accepted. former student: yea JennyG: I'm very proud of you! former student: its really tough writing this over and over JennyG: Darn right it is! JennyG: But you're doing it without much prompting from me, which is what impresses me so much. former student: i think if you werent my teacher for a little bit i wouldnt be in the place i am now former student: you really changed my life JennyG: Ok, now you're flattering me. former student: with school JennyG: And I like it! *blush* former student: and everyting JennyG: Do you realize you just gave me the biggest compliment a teacher could ever receive????!!!! former student: no former student: but im not lieing to suck up im being very true JennyG: I know. You have nothing to gain right now.;-) former student: ok JennyG: Which is why I'm so happy. JennyG: Thank you. former student: your welcome JennyG: I have to go to bed soon, so I'll probably not get to reading your latest e-mail. former student: ok former student: i think im going to go to bed right now so ill talk to you later
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
I'm so glad your brother was cleared, Storm. And if he ever wants to compare notes with another HS chem teacher, tell him to drop me an email.
Jenny, isn't positive feedback from former students -- especially ones you swore we˙ÍXmpossible to get through to -- amazing?! Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Jenny, spending time to talk with a student is brilliant. You have no idea what confidence from a teacher means.
I had a very good teacher who I really liked, he was fantastic, I took three class with him, over two years. He and his wife both taught at the same school and they were both brilliant and I can imagine they told stories of their joint students at home (their poor kids!).
And then on the last day of school, this one teacher said to me "You know, I want you to come visit to tell me how you're getting along at university."
Until then I had not been planning to troop into my old highschool like some sort of returnee can't-let-go-er. I never realised anyone cared what or how I did after I left.
Anyway. Teachers are cool. Yay teachers!
EDIT: And I've been considering a career as a teacher. I've discovered I like getting people younger than myself in order .
posted
I had a really cool English teacher in high school. I've tried tracking him down to say thank you, but haven't managed to yet. When I finally get a novel published, I'll be dedicating it to him - he was that great. Awesome teachers are fantastic.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Quid- I have a list of thank yous I have to go back and make, especially if I publish something. Most of the people on the list are teachers.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Boon
unregistered
posted
Well, I've been inspired to write a thank-you email to a former teacher. Hope he doesn't think I'm crazy! He was my English teacher about 15 years ago...doubt he'll even remember me...
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Boon, I will lay odds that he does remember you -- possibly not very well (especially since I assume you behaved yourself ), but remember you nonetheless -- and he will DEFINITELY not think you crazy.
What's more, you will absolutely make his day. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Yes, of course *teachers* are awesome. If only they didn't have certain students, the world would be grand. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
My philosophy professor became my mentor and shaped my life. He needs to be thanked more often.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Boon
unregistered
posted
I got a reply. Partial excerpt:
"I always thought it was a special name and you lived up to it ( as I said then, you were a special person ).
If I helped you in any way, this letter couldn’t have come at a better time in my life. Teachers never know if they are making a difference in their student’s lives. You just made my career worthwhile."
Everyone, please run a google search and send off a quick one to a teacher. Any teacher. It'll be worth it, I promise.
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posted
*laugh* If I didn't know better, I'd think one of my former students had read this thread.
I got an email from her today (which I was expecting, since her younger sister asked me for my email on her behalf last week). Not only did it have a couple science-related questions (physics stuff that she sort of remembers and wants to be reminded about, which is cool ), but she mentioned that since she's supposed to be giving a talk about gratitude next week, she's trying to be sure THIS week to say thank you to those people she owes thanks to.
A snippet of her email:
quote: BUT, before I can honestly speak about gratitude, I have to offer gratitude to certain people that I am grateful for. This way I won’t feel hypocritical. So thank you very much for being an outstanding science teacher. I hope you enjoy my sisters, I know they love biology. They are extremely lucky that you have returned to teaching at [name of school].
My reply:
quote: I'll try to write you a longer reply with detailed answers to your questions over the weekend.
Meanwhile, I just wanted to let you know that your email totally made my day! Thanks so much.
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