Principal Arrested
Used Student Pictures for Porn
By Daniel Muniz

A miniscule number of teachers have made far too many sensational headlines about their inappropriate relationships with kids in their classroom. But this misconduct isn’t only limited to educators since it can also include their leadership. Principal John Stelmack of Scott Lake Elementary School of Lakeland Florida was arrested for superimposing the faces of the young girls of his school on to images of adult nude women.

Naturally, parents were outraged.

It is bad enough when a teacher does something like this but it is truly disturbing for an administrator to do it.

And it also gave a sense of disillusionment to parents because they felt that if the educational leadership cannot be trusted, then there is little else that can be done to escalate problems within the school system.
 

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Incidentally, before the principal was arrested, there were already some parents who did feel trapped. For example, here is one observation of a concern that many parents shared:
 

"He's very touchy feely, huggy with the children as far as just hugging them in the morning, saying hello, greeting them. My initial thought was, which a lot of parents had, possibly he was just being overly friendly and maybe some parents took it the wrong way." Source: Bay News 9

Obviously, parental instincts had kicked in. Although some people may have dismissed the actions of the principal to just being overly friendly, this kind of behavior from a grown adult towards children does seem to be so out of place. But even though there were a number of people who were already uneasy with the demeanor of this administrator, they did not know how to properly address the situation because after all, he was the boss.

Even so, parents cannot ignore anything that looks and feels suspicious.

As a result, these concerns did manage to find their way to the Polk County School Board which eventually led to this graphic discovery and the subsequent arrest and prosecution.

And perhaps this revelation prevented the situation from getting worse since no other inappropriate pictures of children were found and there was no evidence that he had harmed anyone in his school. Accordingly, this principal was certainly on the path of doing something that could have some day led to a physical tragedy.

But what can really be done if such a circumstance does arise at your school?

The first and foremost step is to act on parental instincts.

If something doesn’t feel right, then it may very well be something that is cause for alarm. No one wants to be accused of being hysterical, but nearly everyone has an innate gift of fear in which it is perfectly natural to react to it. And when your children are involved, it is then crucial to take these fears seriously.

Some of the parents at this elementary school figured that something was up but this incident vividly illustrates another problem when suspicion involves the top educational leadership.

But in every bureaucracy, there is always someone else higher up in management and that is how these concerns wound up with the school board which then proceeded to take the appropriate action.

Although school districts across the country are now stepping up their efforts to better monitor their faculty, the public has to insist that the administration be policed as well. That means that there has to be a mechanism in place that is outside and independent of the educational leadership that can respond to these kinds of concerns.

The school board is one such avenue and it was aptly utilized in this situation.

In addition, the same stern warnings that have been reinforced to faculty about illegal and inappropriate activity with their students have to be broadcasted to the top school officials as well. It is imperative that school districts not exclude their leadership from the same standards that they are applying to their teachers.

As this incident so clearly demonstrates, principals can be perverts too and the same swift action must be dealt to them as well.

In fact, administrators have to be held to a higher standard and face more scrutiny because of the enormous responsibilities and burdens that they must bear. And that higher standard is not only because they manage teachers but that the trust of the public is at stake.

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