When I opened my NY Times app Saturday morning, I never thought I would be reading about the school district where I live. I am appalled. And the fact that the school only suspended these kids is ridiculous. To kids like this, suspen…
When I opened my NY Times app Saturday morning, I never thought I would be reading about the school district where I live.
I am appalled.
And the fact that the school only suspended these kids is ridiculous. To kids like this, suspensions are akin to vacation days.
In the good old days, these kids would have had corrections and perhaps similar to juvie time experiences, lots and lots of community service until they were ready to collect social security. But today, gold stars for participating, pat on the head.
A reader said to me about middle schoolers in the area in general (as in NOT just specifically Great Valley):
The rising 9th graders (last month's 8th graders) are by far the most troublesome class in every local district currently. My sons' district has had many problems with the 8th graders last year. So many district emails about things going on in the middle school. And the female 8th graders sadly were in the center of all of it … the female 8th graders at one school even caused new policies at high school football games because of their fights….[this is WCASD]…
Chester County Ramblings yes, actual clumps of hair being ripped from scalps and utter craziness. Police and ambulance called to the scene. Now no minor can attend a high school football game without a parent unless they are a football player….Talking to local moms, I've heard similar iterations about the exiting 8th grade class in Downingtown and GV, to name a few.
The school district administrators sure worked to keep this quiet in Great Valley, and as taxpayers, residents are appalled by this too. Not just parents or fellow teachers or the teachers' union. These kids should be exited from the school and their parents also held accountable.
Where were these kids' parents? What do they have to say? Do they even care?
This harassment by these kids against these teachers is NOT about a right to freedom of speech, Great Valley. That's bullshit. IMHO Great Valley simply doesn't or doesn't know how to deal with it.
CLICK ON photo screenshot to read article
⬆️ I am sharing this article with my readers, so everyone everywhere can read it.⬆️
CLICK ON photo screenshot to read article
I mean seriously what are taxpayers spending hard-earned money on with the Great Valley School District? The bullying of students that goes on and more unpleasant things that is swept under the rug is bad enough, but this?
In February, Patrice Motz, a veteran Spanish teacher at Great Valley Middle School in Malvern, Pa., was warned by another teacher that trouble was brewing.
Some eighth graders at her public school had set up fake TikTok accounts impersonating teachers. Ms. Motz, who had never used TikTok, created an account.
She found a fake profile for @patrice.motz, which had posted a real photo of her at the beach with her husband and their young children. "Do you like to touch kids?" a text in Spanish over the family vacation photo asked. "Answer: SÃ."
In the days that followed, some 20 educators — about one quarter of the school's faculty — discovered they were victims of fake teacher accounts rife with pedophilia innuendo, racist memes, homophobia and made-up sexual hookups among teachers. Hundreds of students soon viewed, followed or commented on the fraudulent accounts.
In the aftermath, the school district briefly suspended several students, teachers said. The principal during one lunch period chastised the eighth-grade class for its behavior.
The biggest fallout has been for teachers like Ms. Motz, who said she felt "kicked in the stomach" that students would so casually savage teachers' families. The online harassment has left some teachers worried that social media platforms are helping to stunt the growth of empathy in students. Some teachers are now hesitant to call out pupils who act up in class. Others said it had been challenging to keep teaching.
"It was so deflating," said Ms. Motz, who has taught at the school, in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb, for 14 years. "I can't believe I still get up and do this every day."
The Great Valley incident is the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States. It's a significant escalation in how middle and high school students impersonate, troll and harass educators on social media. Before this year, students largely impersonated one teacher or principal at a time….In a statement, the Great Valley School District said it had taken steps to address "22 fictitious TikTok accounts" impersonating teachers at the middle school. It described the incident as "a gross misuse of social media that profoundly impacted our staff."
Last month, two female students at the school publicly posted an "apology" video on a TikTok account using the name of a seventh-grade teacher as a handle. The pair, who did not disclose their names, described the impostor videos as a joke and said teachers had blown the situation out of proportion.
"We never meant for it to get this far, obviously," one of the students said in the video. "I never wanted to get suspended."
"Move on. Learn to joke," the other student said about a teacher. "I am 13 years old," she added, using an expletive for emphasis, "and you're like 40 going on 50."…In an email to The New York Times, one of the students said that the fake teacher accounts were intended as obvious jokes, but that some students had taken the impersonations too far…."There was this undercurrent conversation throughout the hallway," said Shawn Whitelock, a longtime social studies teacher. "I noticed a group of students holding a cellphone up in front of a teacher and saying, 'TikTok.'"….
— other posts were sexualized. One fake teacher account posted a collaged photo with the heads of two male teachers pasted onto a man and woman partially naked in bed.
Fake teacher accounts also followed and hit on other fake teachers.
"It very much became a distraction," Bettina Scibilia, an eighth-grade English teacher who has worked at the school for 19 years, said of the TikToks.
Oh and the namdy pamdy Great Valley Middle School response? Absurd. Toss. Those. Kids. Out.
And AGAIN, where is parental accountability? These are minors.
Maybe Dr. Souders needs to be replaced? Leadership starts at the top and well? This is leadership?
This is appalling and unacceptable and embarrassing. If you live in this district like me, you have had people sending this New York Times article all weekend long. People asking me what's wrong with these kids in Chester County, PA?
And if you read article, these kids are not actually sorry, just sorry they got pinched for this.
This behavior is not OK, and Great Valley School District, y'all need to stop hiding and start acting. Hiding behind a mamdy pamdy spokesperson and layers bureaucracy isn't going to make this go away. After all the cat is out of the TikTok.
Oh and The Philadelphia Inquirer also had an article:
Great Valley Middle School students set them up to impersonate, and demean, staff members
by Maddie Hanna Updated July 6, 2024, 7:02 p.m. ET Published July 6, 2024, 5:56 p.m. ET
Earlier this year, fake accounts impersonating more than 20 Great Valley Middle School teachers appeared on TikTok, some depicting racist, homophobic, or sexually inappropriate content.
District officials said that middle school students had created the accounts, which gained a following among other students.
The impersonation campaign created turmoil in the Malvern middle school's community, in what the New York Times described Saturday as "the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States."
In a message to the Great Valley community Saturday night, Superintendent Daniel Goffredo said it was "disheartening" for the district to be an example of behavior "that has caused such duress" for staff.
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," Goffredo said. "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."
At a school board meeting in March, the head of the district's teachers' union, Nikki Salvatico, asked the community "to consider the emotions, trauma, and suffering incurred by our teachers." Salvatico said the fake accounts featured "pornographic, racist, and homophobic" pictures and text, and threatened "the very fabric of our learning community."
….A district spokesperson, Jennifer Blake, said officials weren't sure exactly how many students were involved in creating the accounts. "It's kind of been word of mouth," she said Saturday. She added that it wasn't just teachers who were targeted: A custodian, for instance, was also impersonated.
In a statement provided to The Inquirer on Saturday, district officials said they consulted with law enforcement agencies and legal counsel after learning of the accounts in late February, but "these accounts were created outside of the school and may have represented students' right to free speech."
These students who are in Great Valley Middle School were essentially stalking and harassing and trying to destroy their teachers. And for what? Were these minors being harassed or demeaned by these educators? Doesn't appear so. These minors were not uncovering issues in the school but creating additional problems. So it's a bit of a stretch to say they were exercising First Amendment rights isn't it?
Great Valley Middle School and Great Valley School District has been caught with their pants down and their arse cheeks waving in the not so breezy summer heat.
What are you actually going to do Great Valley other than hide behind terribly inept spokespeople?
Again the cat is out of the TikTok.
Time to deal with it. This issue is not going anywhere. And as a public school district you are actually accountable to residents and taxpayers as well. And these kids KNOW that school districts are AFRAID of exercising real consequences. And if you don't deal with it, this will get worse.
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