Back when I was teaching, students regularly threatened to accuse teachers of pronging them if the teacher was “mean” to them. It was common practice in that school district (Houston Independent School District) that, if you did not like your child’s teacher and wanted a new teacher for your child, you reported the child’s teacher as having pronged your child. The teacher would then be suspended pending investigation and your child would get a new teacher, and by the time the teacher was cleared, he or she would have been transferred to another school. It got so bad that the teacher’s union finally in disgust threatened to file criminal charges against every person making a false accusation of child abuse against a teacher. That caused outrage in the social services community, which worried that genuine cases of teachers abusing children could end up not reported for fear of prosecution, but ended the blizzard of false child abuse allegations.
So what I’m saying is this: Don’t assume. It could be that the recent blizzard of teachers sexually molesting children gave this kid the idea that he could get rid of a “mean” teacher by making a false accusation. Or it really COULD be abuse. We don’t know, and should not convict the teacher before the facts come out in court.
– Badtux the former teacher penguin
Back when I was teaching, students regularly threatened to accuse teachers of pronging them if the teacher was “mean” to them. It was common practice in that school district (Houston Independent School District) that, if you did not like your child’s teacher and wanted a new teacher for your child, you reported the child’s teacher as having pronged your child. The teacher would then be suspended pending investigation and your child would get a new teacher, and by the time the teacher was cleared, he or she would have been transferred to another school. It got so bad that the teacher’s union finally in disgust threatened to file criminal charges against every person making a false accusation of child abuse against a teacher. That caused outrage in the social services community, which worried that genuine cases of teachers abusing children could end up not reported for fear of prosecution, but ended the blizzard of false child abuse allegations.
So what I’m saying is this: Don’t assume. It could be that the recent blizzard of teachers sexually molesting children gave this kid the idea that he could get rid of a “mean” teacher by making a false accusation. Or it really COULD be abuse. We don’t know, and should not convict the teacher before the facts come out in court.
– Badtux the former teacher penguin