Topless Teacher
Another Educator Scandal
By Daniel Muniz

Melissa Moss has earned an infamous moniker as the “topless teacher” at the high school she taught at in the state of Missouri. And yes, she did do something stupid that cost the young teacher her job. And as the name suggests, it had something to do with her being topless for a young male student.

Moss taught English at Barat Academy, a private Catholic school in Dardenne Prairie Missouri. During her tenure, she was well liked by the faculty, staff, parents, and especially by the student body.
 

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However, over the course of time the educator befriended a 15 year old teenage male that was in one of the classes she taught. Although she maintained a good rapport with many of her students, the relationship she had with this particular boy soon went well beyond the bounds of a simple friendship.

So as her illicit affection for the teenager grew more intense, the 27 year old English teacher then decided to email him from her own personal computer at home two digital images of her bare body from the waist up which exposed her naked breasts. The explicit pictures were intended to arouse and titillate the boy. And with any adolescent living with raging hormones, an attractive woman privately displaying her bare boobs definitely accomplished that goal especially since it came from an authority figure such as an educator.

However, the boy’s parents routinely monitored his Internet activity so they stumbled on the pictures.

Upon this startling discovery, they immediately notified law enforcement since this incident was obviously against the law. The police reacted quickly and the teacher was charged with a class A misdemeanor.

In addition, the parents also notified the school about the digital images and that is the twist in this story. Since Barat Academy is a private school, their leadership fired Moss.

And the beauty of it is that this school didn’t have to play any ridiculous games of placing an educator on a paid administrative leave. That often happens in public schools even when a teacher is sitting behind bars after committing an outrageous offense against the student body. Also, many pubic schools ultimately have to wait until a contract expires so that they don’t have to renew it or beg the educator to resign.

The reason for all of the silliness is that too many school districts are mired in red tape and inane rules that have no basis in reality even when it involves a very serious crime. In this situation, Barat Academy had no bloated bureaucracy to wade through because the school had the freedom to do what was right.

Also, school districts have to deal with public pressure from the media and from many irate parents so spineless administrators are often tempted to cave in even when one of their own faculty members is in jail.

Barat Academy faced the same thing since Moss was a popular teacher. Some students and parents even created a profile on Facebook to protest the termination and they demanded that the educator be reinstated into the school even though she showed very poor judgment. However, the school didn’t flinch.

Of course in a professional job like teaching, every educator needs a form of due process. Out of fairness, every side has to be heard and all the facts have to be carefully weighed. That is the very basis of the integrity of a school’s leadership and they have to exercise responsibility and caution.

However, in the cases where the offender is caught red handed, there is very little wiggle room left.

The proper procedure must still be followed to ensure fairness but when it is concluded, action has to be taken and that is what happened in this situation.

And the other noteworthy action was done by the boy’s parents. They knew something was wrong because an adult has absolutely no business sending nude pictures of herself to a minor. And if that person is the boy’s teacher, then the act is even more outrageous because that is something that professionals shouldn’t do.

The parents then acted swiftly and decisively.

Melissa Moss was arrested and charged with a crime and the school fired her.

I don’t want to sound condescending but these parents did something called parenting. They wanted to know what their kids were up to and they were willing to monitor their child’s Internet activity because so much mischief happens in cyberspace. And when they did find something, they reported it to the proper authorities.

Unfortunately, in some of the teacher sex scandals that rocked the nation, some parents were aware of educators making sexual advances to their children but they didn’t do anything about it. Such a paralysis allowed the situation to escalate.

But as the school’s president, Debby Watson, explained:

"It’s frustrating, it's upsetting, it's disappointing. It's all of those emotions. But what I'm most proud of is that parents did the job they needed to do. And they work in partnership with the school."

Source: KTVI News - myFOXstl.com

And that’s absolutely right. Parents and school administrators cannot and should not sweep incidents like this under the rug. It has to be confronted and dealt with. Of course sex scandals are never going to end but at least the public now knows that they are not going to be ignored.

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