Floyd County High teacher Stan Hawkins did not know that pornography was on his school-issued laptop, according to a letter sent home to parents today.
Superintendent Terry Arbogast said he believes he's done the right thing now that the investigation into the incident is complete.
What do you think should have been done in this case?
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Welcome to Chalk Dust! This is your community aimed at exploring education in the New River Valley. I'm Anna Mallory. I went to public schools in West Virginia and now I cover PreK-12 education for the Roanoke Times.
I read way too many reports about improving schools and can speak in entire sentences using educational acronyms. I'll be letting you know about issues and events affecting your children, schools and tax dollars, but, more importantly, I want to know what you think. Let me know your opinions about issues in the boardroom, classroom and beyond.
How the film clip got there and by whom is not my biggest concern, but we do have to hold the school system responsible for the safety and care of our children. I have software on all of my computers in order to protect myself and my family from harmful material and I would have expected the same from the school system. I do know that Floyd County is very technologically advanced, especially for it's size, and it definitely caught me off guard that such an incident could have happened in the first place. If safeguards are in place, then they need to be updated. Unfortunately, the internet is readily available to all sorts of people and why they are compelled to put trash and other dangerous or harmful materials out there is beyond my comprehension. As others have said, it is entirely possible for garbage to be downloaded onto computers without our knowledge and that is exactly why we need filters and software to block these things.
Hopefully this situation will be corrected and all of those affected by this dreadful incident can now move on.
Comment by Tracey Mattson — September 19, 2008 @ 10:54 am