Liz Ditz left this for me as a comment on another post. (Warning: Please be sure you are not drinking any liquids when you read this or you may choke on them) Via EdWonks, this article from WTHR in Indianapolis:
…during school hours in a classroom with an experienced teacher present, two sixth graders completed the act of intercourse…at least ten students were witnesses. No disciplinary actions were taken against the teacher… All teachers were told to keep quiet.”
Middle school students having sex in a busy classroom while a teacher is present? Warren Township Associate Superintendent Jeff Swensson confirmed it’s true. It’s been kept under wraps since November.
So…let’s see if I have this right. Teacher is distracted during lab class; sixth graders have sex in the classroom with students watching and keeping a lookout.
According to an associate superintendent, the teacher didn’t realize what was happening because:
…another student acted as a “look-out.” But once the teacher discovered the behavior, immediate action was taken. Swensson says the students involved were recommended for expulsion. But he did not say whether the board followed that recommendation.
No police report was filed and no consequences fell on the teacher.
Now let’s think about this for a minute. A substitute teacher in Connecticut is the victim of malware and faces 40 years in prison. A ‘teacher’ (I’m assuming it was a full-time regular teacher) in Indiana loses control of his/her classroom, two 12-year olds have sex, and full intercourse at that DURING THE CLASS and the teacher has no consequences.
At the very least, that deserves some sort of write-up for a lack of control over his/her classroom.
In the course of the Julie Amero discussions here and elsewhere, the question of why the union didn’t step up for Amero has arisen. Of course, as a substitute she was likely not a union member and couldn’t benefit from the union’s resources. However, if the Indiana teacher is a union member, I wonder if they intervened or were poised to intervene on this teacher’s part if responsibility for the incident had fallen on them.
As a parent, I would be much more disturbed by the idea of my kid witnessing and/or co-opting two peers having sex in the middle of a classroom than I would be at the idea of images on a computer screen. Even so, I wouldn’t be calling for the teacher’s head as much as I would the heads of the parents of those two kids.
Bonus Link: (State v Amero blog) An Open Letter to Kevin Kane (AG of Connecticut), signed by some very heavy hitters at Yale, Hartford, Trinity and others.
Technorati Tags: schools, students, misbehavior, middle school, teachers unions
