This story just can’t be true as reported—can it? Please, please, let it be a hoax!— but every source confirms it, so I am awarding an early Ethics Alarms 2012 Award for the Unethical Disciplinary Decision of the Year to the addled, ethically-inert and incompetent administrators of the Highland Middle School of Anderson, Indiana. I am doing this now, instead of late December, when the rest of the awards are handed out, because no school, anywhere, could make a more unjust and outright stupid disciplinary ruling, this year, or any year.
By the way, this horrifying tale is a rare “Naked Teacher Principle”-“No-Tolerance” policy hybrid. And what do you get when you cross these two? Jaw-dropping, blood-pressure-spiking incompetence! Imagine:
Four eighth grade students at the school were using a school-issued iPad in class, when the device unexpectedly synched with the teacher’s iPhone, on which, for reasons unknown, she had stored a photograph of her naked torso, from the waist to the neck. A student pressed a button on the device, and Shazam!! The phone sent the image of the naked teacher to the iPad, and the students got an eyeful of bare teacher-boobies, which was not one of the programmed features of the game they were playing.
All four students have been suspended and threatened with expulsion. Got that? Let me write that again, so there is no mistake…All four students have been suspended and threatened with expulsion. No, you read that right. One more time, just to be crystal clear: All four students have been suspended and threatened with expulsion.
Assistant School Superintendent Beth Clark told reporters that the school has established that the system malfunctioned and the teacher’s nude bosom was transmitted in error. But never mind: it is just not permitted for students to view risqué material like teacher ta-tas during class, on school-issued devices. Thus the required result of such intolerable conduct is unavoidable: ALL FOUR STUDENTS HAVE BEEN SUSPENDED AND THREATENED WITH EXPULSION!!!
Clark says the parents can appeal the decision if they don’t like it.
Oh. Well that’s all right then. Wait…what???
No, it’s not all right. It’s…it’s…ARRRRGHHHHHHH! How unfair, dumb and incompetent can school administrators get? This has to be the worst, isn’t it? Worse than the pizza gun? Worse than suspending the girl who picked up her father’s lunch box by mistake and it had a paring knife in it, and worse than telling the deaf boy named “Hunter” that the sign language symbol for his name—a finger pistol—was banned?
Punishing the kid for the pizza gun is cretinous, but he did bite his pizza into the shape of a gun. Suspending the girl for her father’s knife is moronic, but she did technically carry it into the school. Telling Hunter his own name is too violent to sign is insane, but at least he is making a teeny-tiny gun with his hand. But the teacher took the photo of her breasts and stored it on her phone, and the school’s equipment thrust her assets in front of her students’ faces–what is their offense? Not being blind? Not dropping the device showing teacher’s chest and running away in horror? They did absolutely nothing, and the school acknowledges that.
And is suspending them any way.
After all, their parents can appeal.
Meanwhile, the teacher is being disciplined in some unrevealed manner, but apparently will keep her job. I say the Naked Teacher Principle applies. She took a nude photo of herself; she brought it into a middle-school classroom. Now she’s a pin-up and sex object, and a rotten role model, and while she was unlucky, it was still her irresponsible conduct that triggered the mess. Expel her, not her innocent–well, not quite as innocent as they used to be—students. And the administrators, including Beth Clark, should be not merely fired, but prevented by edict from ever holding a position of authority anywhere, ever. People this immune to fairness and logic threaten civilization by their very existence. Bridges, tunnels and highways need toll-takers, and that’s a relatively safe place for Beth and her colleagues, where they can’t do too much harm
ALL FOUR STUDENTS HAVE BEEN SUSPENDED AND THREATENED WITH EXPULSION.
Amazing.
UPDATE: Ethics Alarms regular Tim LeVier posted some fascinating insight into the likely technology issues involved, as well as a plausible theory (highlighted) that could explain the suspensions:
“The teacher must have logged into her iCloud account on the iPad. Doing so means that Photostream will (can) sync all photos across all devices logged into the same account in the “Photo” application. Now, the picture could have come in via Text Message from an outside party, and when she opened it in Messages, it stored to Photos automatically causing a new Photo sync to take place. It’s also plausible that the outside message with the image went to both the iPhone and iPad at the same time if the sender was also using an iDevice.
If the photo popped up while the 4 boys were using the iPad, this is what has to happen. If they just got the device and turned it on, then the iPad would do a sync and that can also be an explanation. But if they were using it for any amount of time (10 minutes) and then the picture popped up, it was because something was happening at that time with an outside party.
“If the image didn’t pop-up, because of an outside party, then I think the boys were wandering through the photos app because they probably noticed the teacher had her account synced. If I were a betting man, this is probably what happened. Without alerting the teacher to the mistake, they continued to browse through her photos on the device coming across the ultimate find. This is also meant to say that they weren’t working on what they were supposed to be working on.”
If Tim’s theory is correct, then the boys should be suspended. That is not how they described the situation, of course. But if that’s the justification, why is the school not saying so?
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Facts: KY Post
Rescuer: Jeff Field, who caught one of my dumb typos almost immediately. Thanks, Jeff!
Ethics Alarms 
And what about the teacher who posted it originally? If this follows to form, the worst that will happen to her is getting promoted out of the classroom to a cushy desk job in the school district building. In the meantime, the true victims of her self-degradation are punished and proclaimed to be little Hugh Hefners. That assumes, of course, that the school board doesn’t already laud Hefner for empowering women!
You’re over-thinking this, I think. As Elizabeth I would say, these are just morons. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense to me.
No they are teenage boys with developing normal sexual desires, and they are not to blame for this incident.
I as a mom of a teenager know these kids are not totally to blame and I think the teacher is not totally to blame either. My concern is this.. All the schools have internet and access.. Why is the school providing I-Pad’s to the teachers??? These students and our kids have enough to deal with in this messed up town we call Anderson. Yes it has its good parts don’t get me wrong.. But really I am more concerned about why the Anderson Community School’s do not apply them funds to helping our children GRADUATE… There are more students dropping out now days. Seriously I would think if you have the students that are really trying to to graduate and do something with their future That they would fund a few more programs to help with achieving their goal… Anderson just isn’t what it used to be and I think we can all agree on that. So I would think with all the BS that is going on with our kids these days that we need to take a stand in our town and hold Anderson Community Schools accountable….And ask that the teacher’s remember why they wanted to be a teacher???? and I am sure it wasn’t for the money…. So take them extra funds they have and support our teachers as long as they are on the up and up and wanting to dedicate themselves to being a great teacher… I say HELP OUR KIDS REACH THEIR POTENTIAL AND THEIR GOALS.. YOU ARE IN THEIR EVERYDAY LIVES AND AN INFLUENCE TO THEIR FUTURE AND THEIR LIVES. AND GETTING THEM READY FOR THIS THING WE CALL LIFE..
Or, as they say, “Never attribute to malice that which is perfectly explicable by stupidity.”! In this case, though, I think both factors are in play.
I hope there is more to this story; it is just inconceivable that this many educators could be this moronic in one place. Please let there be some factor that has yet to be released, please!
Group CYA tends to be a big one in cases like this.
I’m with you—I just can’t believe anyone would do this to students. But that’s what every news report says happened.
I’m just curious how the phone and iPad automatically synced up.
Skynet?
You realize you came very close to owing me a new computer. I nearly spewed soda all over the place because of this comment.
(Sorry.)
The teacher must have logged into her iCloud account on the iPad. Doing so means that Photostream will (can) sync all photos across all devices logged into the same account in the “Photo” application. Now, the picture could have come in via Text Message from an outside party, and when she opened it in Messages, it stored to Photos automatically causing a new Photo sync to take place. It’s also plausible that the outside message with the image went to both the iPhone and iPad at the same time if the sender was also using an iDevice.
If the photo popped up while the 4 boys were using the iPad, this is what has to happen. If they just got the device and turned it on, then the iPad would do a sync and that can also be an explanation. But if they were using it for any amount of time (10 minutes) and then the picture popped up, it was because something was happening at that time with an outside party.
If the image didn’t pop-up, because of an outside party, then I think the boys were wandering through the photos app because they probably noticed the teacher had her account synced. If I were a betting man, this is probably what happened. Without alerting the teacher to the mistake, they continued to browse through her photos on the device coming across the ultimate find. This is also meant to say that they weren’t working on what they were supposed to be working on.
Great insight, Tim. If the students were in fact hacking into the teacher’s photos, then the students getting suspended makes much more sense. Why, however, would a school not make this clear? That’s almost as incompetent as the other scenario. Appearance of unfairness and idiocy is almost as bad as the real thing.
I’m going to add this post to the main article. Thanks.
“I see your change has been defaced by scratches and will not be accepted. If you will pull over there, the Highway Patrol will be with you shortly to issue a citation for failure to pay toll. What? Well, tell it to the judge.”
Let’s say that Tim’s theory is correct and the boys were not working on what they should have been working on. This wouldn’t be the first time that a student chose to “play around” on a computer for a while rather than work on the actual assignment. I have never heard of a middle school student who has been suspended/expelled for not being on task when it’s usually pretty easy to get a middle school student back on task. Do you think the students would still be suspended with the possibility of expulsion if they were off task and ended up pulling up some boring pictures of this teacher’s Thanksgiving at her parent’s…and everyone was fully clothed?
Sharon’s pretty right on this one. What the boys did in no way could be considered “Hacking”. The fault is still 100% the teacher. What makes most sense to me, given the possibilities I put forward before, is that 1 or 2 of the boys were tasked with the iPad, and when they found the picture, they expanded the circle to other students.
Also, there’s also a possibility that the teacher didn’t “accidentally” let this happen. It may have been a predatory move that was intended for 1 student and when that student showed his friends instead of keeping it to himself, the teacher retaliated.
I’d suspend students (not expel them) for electronically looking through a teacher’s personal photos without permission. You wouldn’t? That’s a flat out violation of privacy and fairness. How dare they (if that’s what happened)?
If they GOT the picture, they are partially culpable, with the teacher. If it was inadvertently found by the device, they are absolutely innocent, but the teacher is culpable. If she SENT it to them, she should be arrested.
Either way, the proposed punishment, or lack thereof, doesn’t fit. Without knowing all the details, I am still not in favor of suspending the boys, even if they did actively pursue the pictures. Their exuberance combined with an immature ethical framework, would beg clemency; especially in the light of the teacher’s and the school’s failure to safeguard against this. Just for my clarity; are we talking about 1 iPad brought by the teacher, or 4; or were they supplied by the school? Not that it matters, the teacher bears the lion’s share of responsibility here, and she should be given the same punishment as the students. That’s not likely because the students don’t have a union.
Initially, I thought the IPad was being used for an assignment. However, it seems that one boy asked to use the IPad to play a game. I can think of very few reasons as to why a student should be playing a game on an IPad in the first place during class time. In many cases, I would think that a teacher who allows a student to play a game during class time is contributing to the off task behavior. Especially when it comes to middle school students. It’s all just assumptions at this point though. Who knows what really happened.
As innocent as you think this comment is, it’s loaded with information (to me).
The narrative to me is this:
The teacher personally owns the iPad for limited use in the classroom to help her students learn. Certain applications could be construed as both a game and an educational tool. Makes learning fun.
The teacher allowed the one boy to use the iPad for the limited use purpose and instead of using it as intended he got bored and was exploring the other content, including the photos.
The teacher did not explicitly load photos to the iPad, but the iPad has access to the 1,000 recent photos taken by her iPhone. An oversight of management of what the iPad has access to and the teacher not removing inappropriate images from Photostream resulted in the lapse.
Since 1 student had limited access and 4 were suspended, I’d say he found the picture and got his friends to huddle around and check out his find.
I think Tim nailed it there. That makes the most sense. Carelessness on part of the teacher and invasion of privacy by the children. Both are to blame.
I’d tend to agree. In any case, children are naturally curious. If you provide them with a place to explore, then that’s exactly what they’re liable to do. They’re NOT liable to think to themselves, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t go here because my dear teacher might have posted some sexually explicit photos of herself”. Mature judgement based on experience is not a juvenile strong point! That’s why parents (and teachers) have authority over them by law. What we primarily have here is a issue of judgement and of character in reference to the teacher in question.
By the way, how do I get this Cloud thing off my phone now that I know what it actually does. Not that I have anything to worry about…but after spending two hours trying to turn my television on with an Iphone…I have decided that technology is not my friend.
It’s not our friend, Sharon. I’m now firmly convinced that these devices are tools of the Devil!! (lol)
The lesson learned here is don’t put anything on the Cloud that you don’t want other people to see. And don’t go to school in Anderson, Indiana.
Excellent advice.
And common sense. Sometimes I wonder if that needs to be taught in schools these days as well. To the faculty!
Check out the supposed Facebook page for Highland Middle School…. not sure if this is an official page or not (if it’s unofficial, you’d think the school would want it closed)… I’ve never seen a school Facebook page so blatanly homophobic, profane, or overtly political:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Highland-Middle-School-Anderson-Indiana/249723859393
Highland is a middle school, so there are no fourth graders in that school. Secondly, they do not have school issued iPads. So if two things are very wrong in this story, what else is.
There is also no mention of fourth graders in my post. If it was in some news story, it was clearly a typo. The relevant facts in the story have been confirmed to my satisfaction.
I am a student that goes to highland middle school in Anderson Indiana and I found this article n I’m shocked!!!! I was hopeing that it wasn’t as bad!!! Anyways I’m stupid n I’m horny lol and I’m 12 yrs old all OK bye
My favorite comment of all time!