quote: California Teachers Suspended Over Execution Images
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LOS ANGELES (May16) - Three high school teachers in California have been placed on leave while school officials investigate complaints that images from the beheading of an American captive in Iraq were shown in their classes, according to weekend media reports.
In all three cases -- two involving San Diego-area teachers and a third in the Orange County town of Santa Ana -- education officials questioned the judgment of teachers who displayed, or allowed students in their class to display, video footage or sound from the execution of Nick Berg by Islamic militants.
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Grossmont Union High School District Superintendent Terry Ryan told the San Diego Union-Tribune he was looking into whether the two teachers in his district violated policies barring the display of unsuitable material in the classroom.
"You don't have academic freedom to show unfettered violence (or) cause unfettered emotional and psychological damage to children," Ryan said in the Union-Tribune's Saturday edition.
The Web site for the NBC-owned TV station KNBC quoted him as saying, "We absolutely think that this is inappropriate, out of line and unacceptable."
The Union-Tribune said allegations about the classroom display of images from the beheading first became public when parents aired complaints about it on a local radio talk show last week. The teachers, who were not identified, were placed on paid leave on Friday.
In one case, according to media reports, a social studies teacher at Grossmont High School was said to have played an audiotape of Berg screaming as he was decapitated and to have shown students still photos of the killing downloaded from the Internet.
A photographic arts teacher at nearby El Capitan High School allegedly permitted her students to view the execution video after a student downloaded it on a classroom computer.
A similar incident was reported in Villa Park High School in Santa Ana, where an English teacher was said to have given students in two of his classes the Web site address where they could view footage of the Berg execution.
"He did not instruct the students to watch it, but apparently he was aware of what was happening," Assistant Superintendent Cheryl Cohen was quoted as saying in a report posted on the Web site of CBS affiliate KUTV. "We have put him on leave while we continue to investigate."
A number of students interviewed by the Union-Tribune questioned school officials' decisions to suspend the teachers.
"You can watch things about the Holocaust. Why can't you watch this?" one 14-year-old student was quoted as asking.
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quote: "You can watch things about the Holocaust. Why can't you watch this?" one 14-year-old student was quoted as asking.
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