A long-time Chicago middle school teacher, who sparked an international manhunt after fleeing sexual assault charges, was sentenced on Thursday, November 5, to 50 years in prison. “You earned every day of it,” Judge Daniel Shanes told 42-year-old Michael Vucic, an 18-year veteran at Gavin South Middle School in Ingleside, IL. An arrest warrant was…
Over the last several years, I have had the pleasure of working with the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC). The organization recently issued its call for proposals to present at the 2016 Annual Conference next June in Philadelphia, and I am pleased to announce that I have been selected…
2015-10-30 Minimizing the Risk of Cybertraps for Educators from Frederick Lane A presentation delivered to the Massachusetts Association of School Personnel Administrators on October 30, 2015 in Shrewsbury, Mass. Earlier in the MASPA meeting, four attorneys from the Office of Professional Practices Investigations in the Legal Office of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary…
In an all-too-rare victory for common sense over prurience, a Utah middle school teacher was recently informed that she will not be fired for her slightly risqué Instagram photo gallery. Mindi Jensen, who teaches at the North Sanpete Middle School in Moroni, Utah, used the pseudonym “minscakes” to post photos of herself working out, posing…
In the summer of 2014, an undercover police detective in New Zealand began trading images of child pornography with a man in Anchorage, Alaska. The detective forwarded information about the exchange to Alaska law enforcement officials, who used the data to obtain a search warrant for the home of Daniel Alan Brown, a teaching assistant…
A 45-year-old science teacher at Santa Ana High School was arrested in early September “on suspicion of having sex with a 16-year-old female student” two years earlier. According to the Santa Ana Police Department, Alvar Albert Gonzalez, met the victim in one of his classes and allegedly had sex with her during her school lunch…
In August 2010, a woman named Jennifer Woolsey reportedly found a video on the desktop of her family’s shared computer that showed her husband Brian on the receiving end of a sexual act by a young woman. At the time, both she and her husband were teachers at Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria, Arizona,…
2015-09-24 Cybertraps for Educators: The Rising Cost of Digital Misconduct from Frederick Lane A presentation delivered on September 24, 2015 in Cape May, NJ, to school business officials from around the state. If you are interested in discussing a presentation or professional development program for your organization on this topic (with or without cowboy hats…
2015-09-21 Cyberethics for Educators: The Rising Cost of Digital Misconduct from Frederick Lane A webinar presented to members of the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification on September 21, 2015. If you are interested in discussing a presentation for professional development or continuing education for your organization on this topic or…
In August, I wrote about the case of Stephanie McCrea, a drama teacher at Evergreen High School in Vancouver, WA. She used a fake Facebook page to communicate with and set up sexual trysts with a 15-year-old student. Among other things, she used the Facebook page to coach her student on how to answer questions…
