Abby Baggini ’18: Four Tredyffrin-Easttown students face criminal charges after a sexting and cyber bullying scandal that began last year at the middle school.
Police launched an investigation in April of 2015, revealing several serious incidents involving students and the distribution of explicit images. In one case, a student attempted to sell one of these images to a fellow classmate, and in another, a boy edited a girl’s face onto a photograph of two adults having sex and distributed it. In the third and most severe case, a girl was pressured by her then-boyfriend to send him provocative photos. District Attorney, Tom Hogan, says that when the two broke up, the boy shared the images with his friends, who then put it on the Internet. Authorities expect to reprimand more students in connection to the cases as the investigation develops.
The boys face both misdemeanors and felony charges, which will be brought in front of a juvenile court. It is reported that some of the specific offenses cover harassment, the illegal use of a communications facility, and the transmission of obscene materials. Charges of obscenity, indecent assault, and stalking have also been discussed. Distribution of child pornography falls under the category of transmission of obscene material, since sending or receiving a sexually suggestive image under the age of 18 is illegal.
However, the boys not only broke the law, but also put themselves and their classmates in possible danger when they put the explicit images online. They now cannot be retrieved, and are available for everyone to see. In addition, when the boys posted them with their location services on, all viewers of the images, including child predators, had the ability to locate the homes of the juveniles via data stored in the picture file.
TE School District, which is ranked amongst Pennsylvania’s best public school systems, plans to take their own disciplinary action. The District Safety Coordinator and Director of Assessment and Accountability, Mark Cataldi, released a statement ensuring that; “We take these matters very seriously and follow up with procedures that promote safety for all students. The incident may also carry school-based discipline.”
As these stories about sexting and spread through the Main Line, the EA community may begin to ask itself how it would approach a similar situation and what this would mean for the school. Assistant Head of School, Dr. Cathy Hall, explained Episcopal’s disciplinary process. Specifically, she emphasized that if the administration were to hear of any student violating the school’s code of conduct, that student would immediately be brought in front of a disciplinary council composed of elected students and faculty. This council would then make a recommendation to the Head of School as to what punishment they find to be fitting; however, it is the Head of School’s final decision regarding suspension or expulsion.
Hall assured that if anyone were to break the actual law, the authorities would most certainly be contacted. Nonetheless, police involvement would not hinder the school’s own disciplinary policy. “I would envision that we would always also have our own disciplinary process in addition to anything that the court may be doing,” she noted.
Yet, the concern isn’t only about how to approach penalizing students, but also how to prevent these things from happening in the first place. Reported statistics from the Do Something Campaign say that 24% of high-school age teens (ages 14 to 17) have at some point been involved in a form of sexting. This can happen throughout all schools, and faculty want to ensure that students are fully aware of all the possible repercussions.
Following the scandal, students at TE are required to participate in the training of safe communication. Hall believes that this is a smart move and important step towards encouraging students to think wisely about the choices they’re making. She follows by noting EA’s push for programs like freshmen health seminars or Speak Up to talk about these problems.
Another way to address these issues is at home, through parents. Hall explained, “We need to continue to have sessions with parents where we talk about this. At the end of the day, our job as a school is to inform parents about options and talk through what we know as educators to be some of the things happening within the school.” She continued saying, “For many of our parents I think it can be overwhelming to keep current on the different apps their kids are using and the different ways they are communicating, and I think as a school we can play a part in keeping that dialogue going.”
Fourth Form Dean Holly Johnston expressed, “We as adults must help to reform the kids: give them therapy, training, lots of love, and a chance to not let this event define them and grow.” In addition to parental advice and seminars like Speak Up, Johnston believes that “We need to do more. We have about one conversation officially about it [Internet safety] a year, but we need to have the conversation and digital citizenship training regularly and in a way that the kids do not tune out thinking, ‘yeah, we’ve heard this before.’”
Hall concluded with a piece of advice for EA students, stressing, “It’s a really bad idea. Have a sense of the decisions you make and the implications of those decisions. My rule of thumb is whatever you’re sending, would you really be comfortable putting it on the door of a classroom for everyone to see?”