Pennsylvania Teacher Suspended Without Pay Over Facebook Photo
According to the Associated Press, a Pennsylvania teacher has been suspended without pay for 30 days because of a picture posted to Facebook. Why the harsh punishment? The article says the teacher “appeared in a picture someone else posted on Facebook that included a male stripper.”
The context of the picture, which was taken at a bridal shower, is not entirely clear. Was she in the background of the picture minding her own business? If so, that doesn’t seem very fair. If she was front and center waving around a wad of ones, the school board probably has a better case. On the other hand, it’s not like she brought a stripper into the classroom. She was celebrating with her friends in her spare time, right? Unfortunately, in the Internet age, that doesn’t make a difference.
This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about teachers getting in trouble over Facebook or Myspace pictures, and it probably won’t be the last. By now, it’s a known fact that social networking for teachers is a risky proposition. In this most recent example, the teacher wasn’t even responsible for posting the picture online and yet she still found herself in hot water because the picture became public.
If this teacher had been monitoring her reputation online, she may have been able to spot the photo before the school board did and ask her friend to take it down. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to, and now she has to forfeit 30 days of income. To many out there, myself included, it doesn’t seem fair that teachers are so harshly scrutinized for content about them online, but that’s the way it is in the age of oversharing, and that’s why proactive online reputation management is so important.
