A TEACHER HAS resigned her post at an American high school after a 16-year-old student ‘stole’ a naked photo of her from her phone and shared it around the student population.
Leigh Anne Arthur, a 33-year-old mechanical engineering teacher at Union County High School in South Carolina, left her phone briefly behind her in her classroom last month, local TV station WYFF4 reports.
One of her students, a 16-year-old male, unlocked her phone, opened her gallery and took pictures of the photos therein.
The naked photo that has caused the trouble was apparently taken by Arthur herself as a Valentine’s Day gift for her husband.
Once the photo had spread among the school’s students Arthur felt compelled to resign her position.
Stupid Things
She told WYFF4 that she forgives the student in question, although she thinks he needs to take responsibility for his actions:
“He’s 16, we all do stupid things when we’re 16.”
He knows right from wrong. He had the ultimate decision to take pictures of my pictures and he had the ultimate decision to send them out.
She says that at the end of the class in question the student had told her “your day of reckoning is coming”.
The temporary superintendent for the school, David Eubanks, says that Arthur should not have left her phone unlocked.
Thus far the student responsible has not been disciplined for his actions.
An online petition has been created by Arthur’s students calling for her reinstatement and describing the student’s actions in accessing her phone as a “blatant attack on her privacy”.
“The ultimate goal of the petition is to get Mrs. Arthur reinstated, though we realise that is unlikely to happen,” the petition states.
At present the petition has garnered almost 11,000 signatures. Its initial goal had been to attract 1,000 endorsements.
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