The School District Responds....
So, probably everyone has heard about the Myspace pirate case. I had gathered from Millersville's response (that they were not at liberty to discuss details of her dismissal because of federal student privacy laws, and that they would not dismiss anyone from an academic profile because of participation in social networking sites) that there was more to the story than Synder was letting on (check out part of her lawsuit from The Smoking Gun).
She had already made some inconsistent statements: in the video on CNN, she says that "I wrote what I wrote," indicating that she wrote "Drunken Pirate" on the photo. However, in the lawsuit, she includes a copy of the photo without the caption and says that she herself never used that caption; that someone else added it when they showed it to her CT.
Well, the school district, which is not named in the lawsuit (and thus are more free to shoot their mouths off!) has released a highly interesting statement (warning: it's a PDF document) that makes the incident make a lot more sense:
1. The photo that Synder has publicized was NOT the photo that was a problem. The problematic photo, which CV has on their document, shows Snyder giving the "peace sign" with a weird look on her face, holding a plastic cup with its contents visible (although I will say -- because of the poor quality of the PDF, and the graininess / black and white of the photo, it is not obvious that it is alcoholic). Still, it is not as innocent in appearance as the photo that Synder publicized.
2. Snyder had had repeated problems (according to her CT) of inviting students to her Myspace, and she would not stop even after her CT had told her to. Another teacher showed her CT the "incriminating photo" which appeared to be the last straw. It was much more of an issue of Synder not following requests.
3. Synder's blog on her Myspace page included a reference to some sort of problem she had had at CV (and it does seem to indicate that her CT was a problem). That entry is reproduced on the CV document.
4. At the time of these events (which were in May 2006), Snyder did not deny that that photo had been posted on her website with that caption. CV's document includes a lengthy letter of apology that Snyder wrote to both CV and Millersville staff.
5. CV denies that they ever told Millersville that if Snyder were not punished, they would no longer accept student teachers from Millersville's program (which admittedly, can be devastating -- it is very difficult to find willing and good CTs everywhere!) -- but of course, if such a threat had been made, it would have been completely unethical for the university to go along with it if they had judged the school system's view of Snyder to be too harsh. This appears to be a total "he said / she said" situation.
6. Snyder does admit in her lawsuit that some of her evaluations had low scores in the "professionalism" area.
So, in short, no, this is not just about that tame "Drunken Pirate" photo. Which I hadn't thought it was -- neither Millersville nor CV would have been able to hold up that sort of thing in any kind of court. Social networking sites are not prohibited by default by either Millersville or CV's code of conduct. It was much more the fact that Snyder was showing unprofessionalism in ways other than that.
She had already made some inconsistent statements: in the video on CNN, she says that "I wrote what I wrote," indicating that she wrote "Drunken Pirate" on the photo. However, in the lawsuit, she includes a copy of the photo without the caption and says that she herself never used that caption; that someone else added it when they showed it to her CT.
Well, the school district, which is not named in the lawsuit (and thus are more free to shoot their mouths off!) has released a highly interesting statement (warning: it's a PDF document) that makes the incident make a lot more sense:
1. The photo that Synder has publicized was NOT the photo that was a problem. The problematic photo, which CV has on their document, shows Snyder giving the "peace sign" with a weird look on her face, holding a plastic cup with its contents visible (although I will say -- because of the poor quality of the PDF, and the graininess / black and white of the photo, it is not obvious that it is alcoholic). Still, it is not as innocent in appearance as the photo that Synder publicized.
2. Snyder had had repeated problems (according to her CT) of inviting students to her Myspace, and she would not stop even after her CT had told her to. Another teacher showed her CT the "incriminating photo" which appeared to be the last straw. It was much more of an issue of Synder not following requests.
3. Synder's blog on her Myspace page included a reference to some sort of problem she had had at CV (and it does seem to indicate that her CT was a problem). That entry is reproduced on the CV document.
4. At the time of these events (which were in May 2006), Snyder did not deny that that photo had been posted on her website with that caption. CV's document includes a lengthy letter of apology that Snyder wrote to both CV and Millersville staff.
5. CV denies that they ever told Millersville that if Snyder were not punished, they would no longer accept student teachers from Millersville's program (which admittedly, can be devastating -- it is very difficult to find willing and good CTs everywhere!) -- but of course, if such a threat had been made, it would have been completely unethical for the university to go along with it if they had judged the school system's view of Snyder to be too harsh. This appears to be a total "he said / she said" situation.
6. Snyder does admit in her lawsuit that some of her evaluations had low scores in the "professionalism" area.
So, in short, no, this is not just about that tame "Drunken Pirate" photo. Which I hadn't thought it was -- neither Millersville nor CV would have been able to hold up that sort of thing in any kind of court. Social networking sites are not prohibited by default by either Millersville or CV's code of conduct. It was much more the fact that Snyder was showing unprofessionalism in ways other than that.