frustrated

Posted on 1/06/10

More | Report Post

I am in my fifth year of teaching, the middle of the second
year at the middle school I was working at. When I got to
school one day, my principal (not a very friendly person to
say the least) informed me that my computer had been
confiscated and brought to the district technology
department because someone had reported that I was looking
at adult sites at school. She told me to go home and
they'd call me. I went home and was called in the next day
by personnel and told that there were several adult sites
visited on my classroom computer. When they showed me the
computer printout, the sites were visited non-stop for two
days, practically all day long. When given the dates they
said I looked at the sites, I explained that I was
reviewing for a test one of the days (therefore could not
have been on the computer all day) and the other day was
showing an LPB clip through the very computer that had the
sites on it. I also asked if they had checked the computer
for viruses or maleware to make sure that there wasn't
anything that had just given the appearance of these sites
and they told me that the computer had been checked.
Personnel said they would interview some students and call
me back the next day. The next day when I returned, I was
informed that they had decided not to interview students
and I had two choices: (1) get terminated and file an
appeal to go before the school board, or (2) resign
immediately and receive a favorable recommendation to work
in another parish. I panicked and resigned, afraid of how
it would look if I had to have a school board hearing -
especially since I am a male teacher, I feel like I would
have been assumed guilty and had no way of proving my
innocence except to talk to my students. I know now that I
made the mistake of not calling my union rep, but I felt
since I was innocent I could handle it myself...Now I'm
looking for employment in neighboring cities. What do you
all think of this? Isn't it frightening in this day and
age that you can be held solely responsible for anything
that appears on your classroom's computer, even in a middle
school where there are plenty of children with the
knowledge of "hacking" practices...

Posts on this thread, including this one