In March, a group of middle school students at Great Valley Middle School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, created TikTok accounts in their teachers’ names and posted memes and other materials claiming their teachers were racists, homophobes, and pedophiles, The New York Times reports.
The Times reported that some of the students who had created the material posted an apology that was filled with a sense of entitlement and no shred of empathy for the teachers and families they had harmed. The apology was removed, the Times reported, after the paper asked the district to notify parents about the article.
“We never meant for it to get this far, obviously,” the paper quoted one of the students in the video as saying. “I never wanted to get suspended.”
“Move on. Learn to joke,” the paper quoted the other student as saying about a teacher. “I am 13 years old,” the student added, using an expletive for emphasis, “and you’re like 40 going on 50.”
Although the district may be limited in its ability to respond since the posts were made off-campus outside school hours and on personal devices, teachers whose names were made public by the students and their families are not limited. Good lawyers are recommended.
Following up, The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted district Superintendent Daniel Goffredo as saying that over the summer, administrators are working “to identify clear and actionable ways that our already established focus on digital citizenship might be strengthened in our curriculum. We are also planning how to reestablish a culture of trust and caring district-wide, but especially in our middle school, where the behavior of our students has had a profound impact on our staff.”
