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Tunkhannock board responds to explicit mobile photos

Mark Guydish

After discovering student cell phones with explicit photos of female students nude or in suggestive poses, Tunkhannock Area School District Superintendent Michael Healey said the district needs to be "proactive rather than reactive" to potential issues with cell phones in school.

Healey said the whole incident - turned over to police and Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick, Jr., for investigation - began when an administrator confiscated a student cell phone "as a result of a secondary issue." District policy allows students to have cell phones but requires them to be turned off and stored in lockers during school hours.

The administrator "had the opportunity, because of the incident that triggered the confiscation, to examine the cell phone content." He found photos of female students that included both nudity and sexually suggestive poses, Healey said.

That was more than a week ago. district officials met jointly with the district attorney, local law enforcement, the juvenile probation office and others "And we decided we needed to take a proactive stance after being reactive, so I drafted a letter explaining the situation to parents and asking their cooperation, and the district attorney decided it would be appropriate to draft a letter to parents as well."

Since then, the district has confiscated at least three more phones with similarly explicit photos, Healey said. All the confiscated phones were turned over to the District Attorney, who is investigating possible criminal charges.

Skumanick's letter to parents notes the district "has discovered a disturbing trend of students possessing and/or distributing nude photos of minors," and that local police and his office are investigating. "One young lady, when questioned about her photo being on a cell phone, called this 'flirting,' ' Skumanick wrote.

Skumanick's letter warns "of the grave risk your children face" in possessing or distributing such photos. "Under Pennsylvania law, these actions are felonies under section 6312 of the Crimes Code relating to Sexual abuse of Children and section 7512 relating to criminal use of a communication facility. Conviction on any of these offenses will result in a permanent record for the juvenile in addition to other ramifications such as registration as a sexual offender for a period of 10 or 15 years."

Students also face disciplinary action under district policies, Healey said. In his letter to parents, he wrote that "the material on the (confiscated) cell phone includes pictures and language that would not be appropriate for viewing during school. The pictures are of a highly sexually explicit nature, and have been of female students."

Healey said students could face discipline for violating the cell phone policy, or under other policies depending on what they did with the cell phone photo. "For example, if the student had that picture and tried to force another student to view that picture, that could be sexual harassment."

Students can also be disciplined under the district's policy banning pornography, though Healey noted that policy was originally written with print media in mind. "We wouldn't want kids bringing magazines or single pictures to school," he said, "but we were strictly reactive to the situation. This was not something we had envisioned happening."

The district is in the middle of rewriting all policies through services provided by the Pennsylvania School Board Association, and Healey said it is likely the update will now include guidelines explicitly resulting from this incident, but he noted policies have to be broad enough to cover this type of unforeseen event. "You couldn't possibly think of every situation," he said, so the student handbooks are deliberately broad, warning that discipline may be meted out for actions not explicitly spelled out in the books.

Healey said phones were confiscated from students in the middle school and high school, and that his letter, dated Oct. 31,  was sent to parents of students in grades five through 12. "We will also have class meetings with each grade level," he said, adding that those will be scheduled so that the district attorney or a representative from his office can be present.