Schools

Tampa Bay Times: http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/middle-school-teacher-accused-of-watching-porn-in-class/1246224
By Marlene Sokol

TAMPA — A middle school teacher could be fired over allegations that he watched pornography in class and exposed his students to pornographic material.

David Tenney, 51, taught AVID, a study skills class, at Liberty Middle School in New Tampa.

Tenney was in his sixth-grade classroom using his personal laptop computer when inappropriate pictures popped onto the screen in full view of the students, according to a letter from the Hillsborough County School District.

That happened more than once, officials said.

“In addition,” the letter states, “it was reported that while in your classroom during instructional time, students observed you watching a pornographic video on your personal cell phone.”

The letter is not clear about when those events occurred. The school’s principal notified the professional standards office on April 27.

The district released the letter Thursday in response to a request from the Tampa Bay Times. Officials did not release Tenney’s reply. He declined to comment.

The letter goes on to say that when district officials first asked Tenney for his computer and cell phone, he refused.

Tenney is accused of immorality, insubordination, persistent violation or willful refusal to obey laws or policies relating to the public schools, and failure to demonstrate competency in his job.

He was suspended Aug. 10 and he can ultimately be fired.

KSL.com – http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=21733122
By: Pat Reavy

COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — A former Brighton High School teacher has been charged with soliciting a student and attempting to view pornography at school.

Steven Richard Smith, 39, was charged Thursday in Holladay Justice Court with electronic communication harassment, attempting to access pornography on school property and sexual solicitation, all class B misdemeanors.

Smith was a music and choir teacher at Brighton. An 18-year-old male student, a senior, “was offered opportunities via text in exchange for a sexual act,” Cottonwood Heights Police Chief Robby Russo said.

Smith resigned immediately after being interviewed by detectives and the school, the chief said. Russo did not expand on what “opportunities” were offered.

The teacher resigned on Feb. 15, according to the Canyons School District. Police say the alleged crimes happened between March 1, 2011, and Feb. 22, 2012.

“Police were contacted by an unnamed person who reported that inappropriate communication had occurred between Smith and a student.”
Smith is scheduled to be arraigned Sept. 12 in Holladay Justice Court.

A charge of sexual solicitation involves a defendant who “paid or offered to pay or agreed to pay another person a fee for the purpose of engaging in an act of sexual activity.”

Police were contacted by an unnamed person who reported that inappropriate communication had occurred between Smith and a student. Detectives contacted school administrators, who turned over the man’s laptop, said Cottonwood Heights Police Sgt. Gary Young.

Pornography was found on the computer, he said. The porn was not of the alleged victim, but rather adult porn that would otherwise be legal if not for detectives alleging that it was viewed on a school computer and possibly on school property, according to the sergeant.

The teacher’s cellphone was also seized and inappropriate texts were found, Young said.

Smith was hired by the district on Dec. 21, 1999, and spent his entire time teaching at Brighton.

By Lauren Barack

July 10, 2012

See full article here: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/894959-312/arizona_mandates_stiff_penalties_for.html.csp

Arizona’s public schools and libraries must filter all computers that are available to children or risk losing 10 percent of their state funding, according to a new law set to take effect August 1.

House Bill 2712 gives Arizona the authority to enforce filtering requirements in both school districts and public libraries that accept funding from the state. While Arizona already has laws in place requiring libraries and schools to filter, the new ruling goes further by allowing lawmakers to withhold 10 percent of their monthly budget, says Aiden Fleming, legislative liaison for the Arizona Department of Education (DOE), explaining that the new law now has “some teeth.”

Federal law already requires K-12 schools and public libraries to comply with filtering laws as set forth in the Children Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Those who don’t comply risk losing federal e-rate funding, which provides for certain technology services such as Internet connections.

Arizona lawmakers, however, felt the need to update current laws to ensure they were being enforced. The bill’s new language specifies, in part, what content schools and libraries must block, describing it now as “visual depictions that are child pornography, harmful to minors or obscene.” The law also states that schools and libraries must create a policy to enforce the ban on these materials, and they must make the rules available to the public. Libraries can unblock filters if an adult needs to access blocked material.

If a school or library doesn’t comply, it has 60 days to change the policy. After that, the state can withhold up to 10 percent of funding until the problem is resolved.

Still, Fleming notes that there’s no way for the DOE, in particular, to monitor whether schools, at least, actually place filters on computers, which could add a wrinkle to the law’s new tough stance.

“We don’t have any official way of finding out, unless a school is turned in,” he says.

While the penalty for noncompliance is steep, Fleming says the DOE doesn’t know of any school without filters. And so there’s little concern that the new law will catch anyone by surprise.

…

See full article here: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/894959-312/arizona_mandates_stiff_penalties_for.html.csp

At different locales around the country, in places as diverse as Detroit, Mich., Lawrenceville, Ga., and Camdenton, Mo., the ACLU is sending letters and filing lawsuits seeking to disallow government school usage of certain Internet filters. They claim their campaign is designed to end the blocking of “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender” activist group sites, but in reality it will allow school children to access to pornographic websites.

This push is part of the ACLU’s national campaign called the “Don’t Filter Me Project.” Done in conjunction with Yale Law School, it is really nothing less than an attempt to bully entire school districts – including elementary, middle, and high schools in those districts – into allowing students to be exposed to sexually explicit material.

It’s important to understand that the ACLU is carrying out this madness in a systematic way. Rather than simply blindly shooting off letters or having attorneys call a given school, they try to find a student who is willing to complain of “First Amendment rights” violations before sweeping in.

This may entail a student who is a member of a campus group like the Gay-Straight Alliance who then complains that his or her rights were violated because the school computer system would not let them access information that the on-campus group could use in their meetings. When this happened in Detroit, the ACLU fired off a letter erroneously arguing that “the filter violates students’ First Amendment rights and the Equal Access Act, which requires federally-funded schools to provide equal access to extracurricular clubs.”

Once a student complains, the ACLU tries to make the case that such student groups deserve access to materials for on-campus activities just like any other campus group.  In the example from Camdenton, Mo., the ACLU went so far as to say that the sites “contain anti-bullying information and other resources for student gay-straight alliances,” and, therefore, if the school refused to remove the filters, the school would be held liable for students who were bullied, etc.

But no matter how the ACLU plays this one, it’s indefensible for a simple reason: it does not violate the First Amendment protected rights of anyone to block sexual sites in school. And make no mistake, the sites that would be accessible if the filters were removed are rife with what can only be considered pornography.

Don’t believe me?  Then look up The Trevor Project, GSA Network, and GLSEN. Or look up the books that homosexual activist websites want kids to read, some of which are too vulgar to even describe, let alone read.  (And while I am not including any of their content, you can view it here if you so desire. But be forewarned: the link provides access to inappropriate sexual material.)

Suffice it to say that children should not be reading this stuff.  And this doesn’t even scratch the surface.  The filters that the ACLU wants totally disabled (which include “sexuality,” “sexual education,” and “lifestyle” filters) block thousands of other sites with pornographic and sexually explicit material.  Does the ACLU really care about our children or their “First Amendment rights?”  You decide.

The biggest concern of parents has always been whether their schools were teaching “reading, writing, and arithmetic.”  They are not interested in the ACLU’s goal of turning those schools into porn portals for children.

Originally posted here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46356

SNOW HILL, N.C. — The State Bureau of Investigation is looking into three Greene County Central High School students accused of creating and sending pornographic material with their school-issued computers.

In one case, a 16-year-old student reportedly sent video of himself with his 15-year-old girlfriend to a teacher by mistake.

“I’m extremely disappointed in these students,” said Greene County Schools Superintendent Dr. Steve Mazingo. “I do not think the overwhelming majority of our students would engage in this type of activity.”

For a minimal insurance fee, students in sixth through 12th grades in Greene County get a MacBook to take home. The school system leases the laptops with a combination of tax money and grants. Each of this year’s computers has a built-in Web camera.

“So, there are probably more opportunities for them to record things and to do things with the computers that they haven’t had before, unfortunately” Mazingo said. “It also greatly enhances the educational opportunities.”

Authorities have not charged any students yet, but they could face felony charges and mandatory jail time for a first offense if they were convicted.

Mazingo would not say exactly how the students in this case are being punished at the school level, but said that in general, students who violate computer conduct policies can be banned from using any school computer, or at least lose all Internet access.

Mazingo said the school system does not plan to cancel the laptop program. Administrators, however, are working with the district attorney’s office on a video to teach students about how serious charges can be for using the cameras inappropriately.

He said administrators would also continue to monitor closely all activity on every issued computer.

The district attorney’s office said it would wait for an SBI report before deciding whether to charge the students.

Originally posted here: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2005911/

November 5, 2007