Student teacher claims her MySpace activity led to denial of credential
Stacy Snyder was weeks away from getting her teaching degree when she said her career was derailed by an activity common among many young teachers: posting personal photos on a MySpace page. Snyder claimed in a federal lawsuit that Millersville University refused to give her a teaching credential after school administrators learned of a photo on her MySpace page labeled "drunken pirate." She said school officials accused her of promoting underage drinking after seeing the photo, which showed Snyder wearing a pirate hat and drinking out of a yellow cup. Millersville University claimed it would have refused to give Snyder a teaching degree even without the web page, alleging unsatisfactory performance and unprofessional behavior. Snyder's case presents a cautionary tale that raises questions about the standards to which teachers—and other young people in positions of responsibility—should be held. Countless teachers have online profiles, many of them available to anyone with a Facebook or MySpace account. Some of those pages are, at times, racy, filled with jokes, photos, and behavior some parents and administrators might view as unprofessional. Teachers in several states have been suspended or fired for their online profiles, leading some school districts to begin crafting policies to regulate the virtual lives of their employees.
Teachers associations and some school district lawyers are warning new teachers to be careful what they put online. Credentialed teachers can generally be reprimanded for activity that disrupts the classroom in some way, said David Alexander, chairman of the Department of Educational Leadership at Virginia Tech. Several teachers told ABC News that they restrict access to their Facebook and MySpace pages and would never allow their students to become their online friends. But other teachers have apparently not considered the consequences of their online behavior or aren't willing to change them. Stephen Murmer was famously fired from his teaching job in Virginia after videos of him painting with his buttocks surfaced online. He settled a lawsuit against the school district last year.
Source: ABC News, 5/6/08, By Scott Michels
[Editor’s Note: The Washington Post also recently published an article on this phenomenon, below. Past coverage of the Stephen Murmer case is at the Richmond-Times link. An overview of the legal considerations for school districts when it comes to online expression by employees is available to COSA members at the next link. Finally, another currently raging cause célèbre over a teacher’s off-duty conduct comes to us from Florida, where a teacher claims she was released for moonlighting for a fishing excursion company that features bikini clad, and some partially unclad, women.]
Source: Washington Post, 4/28/08, By Ian Shapira
Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3/8/2008, By Katherine Kalos
Inquiry & Analysis, By Michelle A. Todd, John L. DiJohn, & Shayne L. Aldridge
Palm Beach Post, 4/29/2008, By Cara Fitzpatrick