Teacher Smackdown

Shannon at Charming Bitch linked to my post about former middle school art teacher, Paul Held. Held had a huge collection of 3 to 4 million child porn images including “under skirt” photos of his students.

He also collected snuff films of children being raped and murdered. The U.S. Attorney office says it’s one of the most disturbing child porn cases they’ve seen.

It’s created a very interesting discussion both on her original post and on the follow up post, Who Is Teaching YOUR Kids? Part II.

Shannon wants to know what you are doing to help ensure the safety of the kids you love. Do you utilize online registries? Do you know the screening process used by the schools in your area? Are you telling your legislators to create laws that require schools to report abusive teachers to police? Are you Googling your child’s coaches and instructors?

Join the discussion at Charming Bitch or start one here!

protecting our kids, child sexual abuse, child abuse, Charming Bitch

In Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania, parents identifying themselves as “Jane and John Doe” are suing the Pleasant Valley School District, its board, Superintendent Frank Pullo, and Pleasant Valley High School principal John Gress in federal court for allowing high school history teacher Bruce H. Smith Jr. to show and talk about “sexually explicit and offensive material” to his 16 and 17-year-old students and corrupting minor children.

According to the lawsuit, Smith showed his students photos of nude, dismembered, female murder victims in class and had sexually explicit conversations with students. The lawsuit maintains that Smith provided his “sexually explicit” book, “Memoirs of a Class President,” about his teenage romantic life to students. (Students say they were told about the book, but never given it to read. Students who have read the book call it an honest coming-of-age account like “Catcher in the Rye” or “Go Ask Alice.”)

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After seeing stories of teachers bragging on Facebook that they had sex with their students, MySpace’s announcement yesterday was good to hear. MySpace said that they will be working with state attorney generals who request the identities of MySpace members who are known child sex offenders.

Since parole conditions for sex offenders ordinarily say that they cannot be in contact with children, it’s important that predators are removed off MySpace and similar social networking sites that attract kids.

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In Kentucky, Melissa Melugin, 31, a teacher at Bellevue High School, resigned her job after being accused that she had an inappropriate relationship with one of her students and shared her personal blog with her students.

Police say they did not find evidence that she was having a sexual relationship with a student. (And if they did, since the student was 18, he is legally an adult and any sexual relationship would not have been criminal.)

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