Rehire teacher who resigned over nude photo, students demand
Teacher Leigh Anne Arthur speaks to a reporter in Union County, S.C. Some South Carolina high school students are calling for the return of Arthur who resigned after a student spread a nude picture of her through text messages and social media. Arthur, 33, told news outlets she left her cellphone on her desk Monday as she monitored a hallway during a class change. A 16-year-old boy took her phone, and with his own phone took pictures of nude images of Arthur on her phone, she said. WYFF News-4 via AP
A South Carolina high school teacher who says she was
forced to resign after a student took her phone and circulated a nude
picture of her has garnered the support of hundreds of students who
signed a petition demanding she be reinstated.
The
teacher, Leigh Anne Arthur, who had taught for more than a decade in
Union County, which is about 70 miles northwest of Columbia, said she
had left her phone on her desk and was out of the classroom when a
16-year-old boy took her phone. The phone was passed among several
classes of students, and the photo of Arthur was copied and shared.
The Union County Schools superintendent, David Eubanks, said in an
interview that Arthur shared responsibility for the episode because she
had allowed students to use her phone in the past.
“It
became a regular piece of equipment that they used in that classroom,”
Eubanks said. “Knowing that, why did she put that photograph on that
cell phone?”
He said the student discovered the photo on Feb. 18,
a Thursday, and his office learned of the episode the following Monday
from the director of the Union County Career and Technology Center,
where Arthur taught an engineering course.
Arthur was “confronted
with the information on Tuesday,” Eubanks said, and was told that she
could either resign or face “due process procedures.” She tendered her
resignation the next day, he said.
But Arthur said in an interview with a local CBS affiliate, “The whole premise of my privacy being invaded is being ignored.”
Arthur, who could not immediately be reached for comment, said she had
taken the photo for her husband for Valentine’s Day. She also told a
local NBC station that the student should be held responsible for his
actions: “He had to hit my apps button and to open up all my apps and
then open my gallery.”
She said that she had been forced to resign. But Eubanks said the resignation had been her choice.
The students’ online petition says: “Leigh Anne Arthur is the victim of
a blatant attack of her privacy. Personal photographs were illegally
obtained by a student and were sent to other students in the school
(Union County High). After being escorted off of school property, we
(the students) are left to believe that she has been forced to, or given
little choice but to resign.”
As of 9 a.m. Thursday, the petition had more than 3,000 signatures.
Arthur said that none of the students involved in sharing the photo had
been punished. On Wednesday, she said that color copies of the picture
were placed in her mailbox, according to the NBC affiliate. One had a
handwritten message on the back of it. She called the Sheriff’s Office.
The school district said that the initial episode was still being
investigated. In a statement, Eubanks suggested that the student who had
taken the phone “may also be severely punished by law enforcement, as
well as the school district.”
“I could care less about what kind
of pictures she has on her cellphone,” Eubanks said in the interview.
“But once students gain access to it, that becomes and still remains the
big issue.”
The superintendent said that his office had been
inundated with calls from people disturbed by the episode, some of them
coming from other parts of the country.
But he said any anger
directed at his office was less upsetting than the fact that “good
students, good people will suffer from this.”
”It’s going to affect the lives of several people, all because of her failure to properly supervise her class,” he said.
Arthur said she knew who the student is but had forgiven him, according to the NBC station.
“He’s 16,” she said. “He’s going to make stupid decisions. We all make stupid decisions when we’re 16.”
Rehire teacher who resigned over nude photo, students demand
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