A 23-year-old math teacher at Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado is in hot water with Cherry Creek School District officials who are determining if she can return to her classroom after she tweeted provocative photos of herself as well as posts about doing drugs and getting drunk.
Although the Twitter page has been shut down, a Google search of the handle reveals the high school math teacher's racy photos, as well as her Twitter bio, still cached by the search-giant:
The latest from CarlyCrunkBear (@Crunk_Bear). Crunker than most. Stay sexy. Stay high. Stay drunk. Stay free. Stay trippy.✌❤. Mile High City.
Some of the teacher's racy tweets live on even though her account has been removed from Twitter, one provocative post that was retweeted by hip-hop DJ and producer Diplo just yesterday included a link to a photo of a semi-nude woman standing on her arms performing a dance move called "twerking." (WARNING: Image is NSFW)
Another retweet from the teacher appears to be her discussing a student who found her attractive:
We shall call you jailbait warrior "@crunk_bear: Just got called Ms. McCutie. Points for being clever, however you are still jailbait."
— Matthew Bryson (@Matty_B23) January 28, 2013
Fox31 reports that several of the photos tweeted depict a young woman, presumably the teacher, occasionally topless, occasionally drinking what appears to be alcoholic beverages and sometimes smoking what looks like marijuana.
One post said that the person tweeting was high while grading papers, another described the irony of a drug bust on school property while the person behind the tweets claims she had marijuana in her car in the staff parking lot.
9News spoke with the teacher herself who said she and a friend did create the Twitter account, but it was meant to be a parody. The teacher also said she was not aware of some of the posts that her friend was making on her behalf and never had drugs on campus.
Nothing that the 23-year-old math teacher posted was illegal, but Cherry Creek School District spokesperson Tustin Amole told 7News that she'll be meeting with district officials Tuesday morning. "There are things that are troubling to us," Amole said to 7News. "However, what we need to do is to talk with her to review our district policy and then determine what our next step will be."
Amole also told 7News that the teacher has been placed on paid administrative leave until the investigation is complete.
Many of her tweets were posted outside of school hours, however 9News reports that some of the now-removed tweets did occur during school hours and discussed her working as a teacher, but given that a crime was not committed should a teacher be punished at work for statements made on social media outside of school property and hours?
Although teacher's union the National Education Association encourages teachers activity on social media, it most certainly would not advocate for the kind of activity that this math teacher was engaging in. And on a teaching advice blog on job-finder website Monster.com, a post titled "10 Things a Teacher Should Never Do," offers this as advice to teachers using social media:
Here’s my rule and I’m sticking to it: if you wouldn’t post it on the board of your classroom, don’t post it on the internet. I’m talking about photos, status updates, and comments. Teachers losing their jobs over photos or “questionable” posting continues to make the news. Why? Some people are learning the lesson the hard way. Don’t be one of them.
The teacher also spoke with 7News and said that she understood that employers can become concerned about employees use of social media, but that she was unsure what drew their concern.
Cheery Creek School District officials say that the teacher will not be returning to class until their investigation of her behavior is completed.
The Huffington Post is not naming the teacher because of privacy considerations and since she has not been accused of a crime nor a school district violation.
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