Teacher Fired over Porn Pop Ups

Have you heard about Julie Amero's conviction for showing pornography to 7th graders? 

Ms Amero is a substitute teacher from Windham, Connecticut.  She was subbing a 7th grade class at a middle school, and the story goes that she checked her email and left the class with another teacher to go to the bathroom.  When she got back, the other teacher was gone, and some girls were on the computer.

Amero says she chased the students away and started class. But later, she says, pornographic images started popping up on the computer screen by themselves. She says she tried to click the images off, but they kept returning, and she was under strict orders not to shut the computer off.

She has since been fired and convicted of showing lewd images to minors, which could mean up to 40 years in jail.  That's after they dropped six of the possible ten charges against her.

I have mixed feelings over the case, which is one of the reasons I've hesitated blogging about it.  I want to be wholly on her side, but I just can't be.  I'm not surprised that  she saw the images come up and tried to click them off and they kept coming showing up.  That's the nature of pop ups and it takes someone with some computer skill to get rid of spyware.  She says she'd been forbidden to turn off the computer.  So Amero claims she was unable to stop it.   Which is where she loses me.  However, the handling of this case is a mockery of our codified notions of "justice."

The first thing that bothers me about how this case is being handled in the media is that they keep calling her a teacher, when she is a substitute.  Don't think there's a difference?  A substitute teacher need only be over 18 and have a high school diploma.  They are, largely, warm bodies with little to no control over the students.  A certified teacher needs a BA (and I believe CT also requires a Masters), passed examinations in content and theory, and has a solid relationship with her/his students that's built over the course of a year.  This isn't to say that I don't respect substitutes, but calling Ms Amero a teacher without the sub qualifier raises people's expectations of her abilities.

The second major issue is that it feels as though Ms Amero wasn't given due process.  When someone is accused of a crime, the prosecution has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the accused has committed it .   As you read more and more about the trial, it doesn't feel like that.  It feels like a witch hunt.

The parents are all up in arms that their precious children saw porn and the district needs a scapegoat-but who's really to blame?

Is it Amero?  Even if she was scared to turn off the computer, there's turning off the monitor, which isn't the same thing.  Beyond that, there's such a thing as extenuating circumstances, where you ignore what you've been told to do.  This would count as extenuating circumstances in my book.  So fine, she has the common sense of a goldfish.  Is it reason enough to send her jail over it?

The cops fucked up with their procedures.  They never checked for spyware (which was present  on the computer).  They said someone had searched for porn sites on the computer.  What no one has reported was whether or not they could isolate when that search occurred.  Ms Amero says she merely checked her email and then went to the bathroom.  I doubt that the other teacher would've looked for porn, but I would be money that a group of 7th graders  would be dumb enough to do it.  Beyond that, can they prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was Ms Amero who did the search?  I haven't seen compelling evidence yet.

The district had no firewall and no anti-virus software.  Shouldn't that mean that it's their own fault?  I've worked in several districts between my work as an aide, a student teacher, and a full teacher.  Every district had hard-core anti virus ware, pop up blockers, and wouldn't even let you view certain types of pages (in fact, my current district blocks Dooce for no reason that I can actually fathom) for a variety of reasons.  It's irresponsible of any school to not have this sort of front-line defense.

Ms. Amero's defense team for not telling the prosecution that they'd hired a consultant who figured out that the school had no protection, therefore causing that highly useful information to be inadmissible in court?

The kids?  I'm going to take a wild leap and say it's more than 70% likely they weren't supposed to be on the computer in the first place.  It's decent odds that they did the search to activate the spyware, and they're the ones who reported it and got the teacher in trouble.  I'm least likely to support this one, but I'm going to put it out there.

There are stupid mistakes, and we all make them.  Firing Ms Amero feels like an overstep--it's not like she was projecting it onto the whiteboard for a nice full image anatomy lesson.  Suing her is a bit extreme and 40 years in jail is just plain stupid.  This feels like an overreaction on everyone's part.

I truly feel sorry for Ms Amero mostly because as a substitute she's not entitled to protection from the union.  If she were a full teacher, the union would be having a field day with this and they certainly wouldn't have made the type of amateur mistakes her legal defense team has made.  By making a substitute the scapegoat the district, the cops and the parents all get to be righteous and one person gets more than her fair share of the blame.

I don't have much respect for her, but I do pity her.

If you're interested in reading more, Wired has an excellent editorial on the case

Comments

[Wendy]

I think the school boards need to get their heads out of the XXX magazines and websites and start focusing on how to stop school violence.

[Deliciously Naughty]

No kidding Wendy.

Off the top of my head I came up with a list of things we could be worrying about instead of some sub making a stupid mistake....

School violence, the achievement gap based on race, the achievement gap based on class, the lack of interest in reading, the lack of focus on basic skills in math, the class size, the underpayment of teachers.....