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Teacher trouble — School board looks for ways to prevent misconduct

I am a longtime educator and certified principal and have had a couch in my livingroom since day one. Never have I felt prompted to misuse it as described in 35 years of adulthood.

I think the greatest lesson to be learned is to sentance the teacher for a seriously long time.

Why not go to the heart of the problem? Utah is forced to hire 2nd rate teachers because their pay is not high enough to get 1st rate teachers. If we would prioritize our youth, we could stop selling their souls in the name of frugality.

I read in the Deseret News a while back that Utah is looking to the Internet to hire teachers. That is the worst thing we could do. Utah needs to hire teachers with Utah's values. The teacher shortage is Utah is due to extremely low pay. A teacher has to have another source of income in the family to be able to make it on Utah teacher's pay. They have to be practically masochists to take a Utah job. Utah is becoming a magnet for teachers who can't get jobs elsewhere because of poor skills or deviant behavior.

This should be on the ballot for the next election.

The first step is to fire the Teachers Union.

Our children suffer.

Ignorance rearing its head again.

Fire the teachers union?

First of all there is no "Union". Look it up. Tell me when you find a "union" related to education.

Why fire the Teachers Union? Do they encourage inappropriate contact between teachers and students? Are they asking that this teacher not be fired? Can you please enlighten us why firing the teachers union would have prevented this situation from occurring?

To some a couch is a tool for good for others it is a tool for bad. Sometimes we ban tools when very few can not or will not use them properly. I for one would like to see all couches/bean bag chairs removed from classrooms for I say that it would certainly not provide a comfortable spot for any outrageously inappropriate behavior to occur in that location. But then again on the other hand if a teacher is a pervert and has his heart set on ruining the life of a student and his own life whether a couch is present in the classroom or not they will find ways to do it.

For 'Get to the Heart of It',5:04am: It is so predictable that every time another sexually predatory teacher is nailed in UT that someone will immediately attribute the problem to low wages. This lame reaction causes more harm to the teachers' cause, because it makes their supporters appear incapable of critical thinking. We want teachers to teach how to THINK, not emote! Try to wrap your brain around these thoughts--be careful, it could hurt.... (1)For wages to be the cause, there would be a mathematical correlation between wages and sexual crime by teachers. Show us the proof! (2) Every state with lower teacher salaries would have greater incidents of sexual crime. Show us the proof! And, (3), please explain how offering more money to teachers will discourage perverts and predators from seeking teaching jobs in UT!!! How will paying higher salaries sort out the predators before they commit crime? Perverts will be discouraged by lower salaries!?! Please spare us the mindless emotion and next time provide the logic to your argument.

This is such a joke. Couches are the problem now? The real problem is that if this guy is guilty then he has much more serious problems then having a couch in his room! Oh, I have an idea, that substitute teacher was caught with a 13 year old in his car....I think the board should look into removing teachers cars. They should all use public transportation, good for the environment and safer for students.

AJ-Think now! Logic! If you pay a living wage you would have a larger pool to pull from and in theory would have higher caliber candidates. When you scrape the bottom of the barrel to find teachers you get the bottom of the barrel. No offense to those dedicated teachers out there.

AJ you are correct that you cannot draw a direct line between salaries and sex abuse. However we cannot ignore the fact that Utah is in the mist of a teacher shortage, and the solution to attract additional teachers is not to increase the compensation, but to lower the standards for receiving a teachers license. As Utah continues to lower the standards, you will continue to have more teachers who cannot function appropriately. So I would say that low salary and dysfunctional teachers are not mutually exclusive either. It would be nice to believe that removing couches, or increasing salary would stop this problem, but it won't. There will be a certain segment of the population who will abuse children, some will be teachers, police officers, bishops, some will be yours and my family members, neighbors or friends. I think it is important to do everything we can to make sure that teachers are not involved in these activities. We will never prevent all abuse, but the raising of standards for teachers, not lowering them will go along way toward lowering the number of abuse cases. The only way you can raise the standard is to raise salaries.

I think the basic question the Board needs to answer is how having soft furniture in the classroom enhances the teaching environment. Beyond that, the rest is prattle. IMHO, having furniture creates an unduly informal atmosphere not particularly conducive to teaching or learning. If the poor kid is tired, send her to the office or tell him to buck up. Isn't school for learning, not wiping noses or giving tired rear ends a rest?

At any rate, in a highly sexualized environment such as a high school, one would have to be naive or asking for trouble to have such furniture in the classroom.

Mr. Skordas has a number of great suggestions which should be considered, refined and implemented. The teacher needs to be appropriately disciplined (but, hey, she is 17 and said she wanted to), and the school culture needs to change back from the teacher being a student's BFF to one where the teacher is leader (and, yes, ruler) of their classroom.

Several years ago, after a faculty room renovation project, I had an old couch moved into my classroom. I used it as a reward for students. They could earn a period sitting on the couch instead of in their desk. Students really liked it.

One day I had a parent come in after school and "You have a couch in your room?" was the first thing out of her mouth. I had never even thought of the issue of perception vs. reality until that moment.

The couch was gone the next day.

Why does it always seem like there are "crazy" issues happening in the Salt Lake City District? West High has been in the news so many times the past year or so for negative things it makes me sick! As an educator myself, I had the chance to go in and observe all three of the high schools and some of the junior high schools in the Salt Lake District. The quality of teachers in general is a step down from some of the others I have been able to observe in Jordan, Alpine, and Nebo. I realize that there are good teachers at every school, but as a group... there is no question that the quality and calibur of teachers is a notch below that of others I have seen. Does the Salt Lake District screen the applicant pool and do a thorough background check like the other districts do?

Provo district had teachers remove all "soft" furniture a year or two ago.

Reasons given were it was a health/fire hazard.

Once again Provo seems to be ahead of the issue before it happens on a state level.

I totally agree with your comments. As someone who was abused by a teacher in high school (a very exclusive prep school I might add--nothing to do with "scraping the bottom of the barrel for teachers.") And the REAL problem here was teachers becoming friends with students. As a parent one must be highly suspicious of teachers becoming too friendly. They may seem like they are trying to be a great mentor in a difficult environment, (and many legitimately are) but any teacher whose social life is entwined with that of the student body needs to be evaluated. It's not worth the risk. Students at this age are just too trusting of mentor figures that play the role of close advocate, and I think that is why many students say it was a mutual relationship instead of abuse--because they were FRIENDS first.

AJ, you need to wake up and smell the postum. We Republicans believe in market forces. We believe that you get what you pay for, and that higher compensation for workers tends to drive up quality by creating competitive pressure.

You get what you pay for.

If you find the teachers in the Jordan, Alpine, and Nebo districts to be of such a high caliber, why are none of them considered to be within the top schools in Utah? Last time I checked West was the highest ranked school in the state.

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with coaches. Off the top of my head I can name atleast ten other teachers at West who have couches in their rooms. It's really not a big deal.

Thanks DN for making a mountain out of a molehill, again. It's media organizations who publish stories such as this, who make it difficult for schools like West to preserve their fragile and hard earned reputations. West, for all its, negatives, it easily the best school in the state.

Dear "Interesting": I thought that you, as an educator, might like to know that you misspelled "caliber". I agree that the quality of teachers has declined.

Robin claims to have been an educator for 35 years and spells "sentence" as "sentAnce." I doubt if it was a typo. ANother internet fake.

To: not so fast | 10:25 a.m. Nov. 9, 2008

A few years back I went to pick up a blind date. The owner of the house and I started talking while I waited for her. The subject of what I do for work came up and I responded a teacher. Turned out I had two of her grandchildren in my class. Of course this dating news got back to school through one of the grandchildren. The teasing stopped after a week of it being ignored by me and I never bothered to ask for a second date.

As a teacher I want to keep my private life guarded. I don't want students to know who I am dating (or if I am) because that is none of my student's business and I don't have enough time to teach as it is anyway. I don't want them to have my telephone number, address or non-school email (which is monitored).

I am their teacher. I know where the line is and I will not cross it. Those that have make things difficult for the whole profession.