<p>Wow. The education department at Millersville refused to graduate a student or give her her teaching certificate due to a picture of her as a “drunken pirate” on her myspace.
<a href=“Discovery Hub - News & Technology”>Discovery Hub - News & Technology;
<p>Here’s the pic (scroll down).</p>
<p><a href=“The Smoking Gun: Public Documents, Mug Shots”>College Sued Over "Drunken Pirate" Sanctions | The Smoking Gun;
<p>Pretty harmless if you ask me.</p>
<p>In addition, she is of legal drinking age.
“In a federal lawsuit, Stacy Snyder charges that Millersville University brass accused her of promoting underage drinking after they discovered her MySpace photo, which was captioned “Drunken Pirate.” The picture from Snyder’s MySpace page (which she says was snapped at a costume party outside school hours) can be seen below. In her complaint, Snyder, a 25-year-old single mother of two, says that Millersville officials discovered the image last May, while she was a senior working as a student-teacher at Conestoga Valley High School. A university official told her that the photo was “unprofessional” and could have offended her students if they accessed her MySpace page.”</p>
<p>Wow…just wow…</p>
<p>I know many, many people who graduated from Millersville (with education degrees, as it’s their specialty) who have done far, far worse on facebook and myspace photos…</p>
<p>Guess I’ll have to talk to my parents and get the local scoop on that one!</p>
<p>God knows what was in that cup…what if it was chocolate milk?</p>
<p>That’s really scary.</p>
<p>I wonder if all universities denied their students degrees if they had been pictured anywhere in a less than flattering perspective what the fallout would be.
:(</p>
<p>The graduation rate at[Reed](<a href=“thesis parade!: cacahuate — LiveJournal”>http://cacahuate.livejournal.com/449820.html</a>)would go way down thats for sure</p>
<p>The picture is rather tame. Apparently the label she placed on it “drunken pirate” was what they took offense to. She was 25 yo at the time, and found out she would not be receiving her teaching degree or certificate just the night beore graduation. Apparently she did receive a degree, one in English instead of one in Education. </p>
<p>Am I missing something? Where is “the rest of the story?”</p>
<p>This will be interesting to watch. Can there be grounds for denying a student a degree she has earned, for engaging in a legal activity? I’m not quite sure of the administration’s rationale here - are they trying to keep their graduate from contact with underage students? Or just trying to maximize the consequences by denying her the degree she needs to make a living?</p>
<p>If the school felt it had to take a stand on the issue of drunken Myspace photos, it occurs to me they could have found a better target than a 25 y/o. I also don’t understand how they could substitute the English degree for the education one at the last minute. And wouldn’t PA have a state certification board that would oversee that process?</p>
<p>[rant] </p>
<p>Can’t anyone in this country relax any more?</p>
<p>[/rant]</p>
<p>“Can’t anyone in this country relax any more?”</p>
<p>na, not really. It’s a side effect of 24/7 information boredom. We have to find something to be offended about. Someday we may look back and realize that Bgates was the antichrist, as he gave us the means to respond without thinking. </p>
<p>I think this lady may win a few dollars though, without alot of effort.</p>
<p>this article provides a little more info </p>
<p>"Snyder received “superior” or “competent” ratings on her final student-teacher evaluation in all areas except “professionalism,” in which she was labeled “unsatisfactory,” according to the suit filed Wednesday.</p>
<p>“There were errors in judgment that relate to Pennsylvania’s Code of Professional Practice and Conduct for Educators,” wrote professor J. Barry Girvin, who supervised Snyder’s work, according to the suit.</p>
<p>Snyder did her student-teaching at Conestoga Valley High School in 2006. Conestoga Valley officials told the college they would stop accepting student-teachers from Millersville if she went unpunished, the lawsuit said."</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-49/1177784649169920.xml&storylist=penn[/url]”>http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-49/1177784649169920.xml&storylist=penn</a></p>
<p>It is getting kind of crazy these days…</p>
<p>From what I found out reading the court document on smoking gun, here are the facts I deduced:</p>
<p>~ She did very well on her Junior blocks (the observational/teaching component of the junior year of education majors at Millersville)</p>
<p>~ She had a shaky start on certain parts of her student teaching senior year (high marks in professionalism and planning, poorer marks in delivery of the material)</p>
<p>~ After a meeting where they discussed her delivery issues, she make a complete turn around and began to show great promise as an English teacher</p>
<p>~ One day late in the semester, she went home sick from school at mid-day. Later she was called and told that it was ‘unprofessional’ behavior and to not come back until a later date.</p>
<p>~ A few days later she was told she had done something (but they didn’t define that something) that could put her teaching career in jeopardy</p>
<p>~ At her end of the semester meeting, her mark in professionalism went from a superior rating to a unsatisfactory level. This is about when they told her about the picture, but couldn’t back up their allegations with discrete laws that she couldn’t place pictures on a personal webpage. </p>
<p>Now, the school she was student teaching at (CV) made a big fuss over the picture and said if they didn’t take ‘swift and severe’ action, they would never hire another Millersville graduate again (kinda harsh since many, many teachers in Lancaster county come from either Millersville or Elizabethtown College).</p>
<p>What I would like answered:</p>
<p>There are a number of security settings on Myspace, including blocking access of your profile to everyone except your added friends, to those exclusively under 18, or to nobody (stupid idea).</p>
<p>I wonder if she didn’t have her profile blocked to anyone, including those under 18, which would make it easy for students to search for her with her full name. I still don’t think it should have changed things, but it is a missing part of the puzzle (it’s hard to unravel puzzles in Lancaster county, there are a lot of backwards and confusing people there).</p>
<p>Also, this story is bringing my best friend’s concerns to light that she has been expressing since beginning college (Millersville alum). </p>
<p>She was always really afraid to step outside the mold of the perfect teacher because if you do something stupid and get caught, you risk losing your job and livelihood.</p>
<p>In Pa, if you are caught drinking underage, you are unable to teach or obtain a teaching certificate in the state. This seems fairly straightforward and really don’t have any issues with this except excluding those who make take a little longer to mature.</p>
<p>However, it’s starting to get extreme. My best friend now teaches in Maryland (after graduating summa cum laude from Millersville) and worries about the strangest things in trying to keep her reputation and job.</p>
<p>The biggest one is going out to dinner with her fiance or friends and having a drink with dinner. If one parent calls in seeing the teacher having, say a glass of wine with an Italian meal, and it rubs a parent the wrong way, she can get into big trouble for it (outside of school hours, and very much legal). Some of her colleagues have been called out on it and it worries her to death!</p>
<p>What is this world coming to? I agree WashDad, nobody can relax anymore!</p>
<p>This country needs good teachers. How on Earth are we going to get people to go into teaching (and lose lots of good and inspirational teachers) with them having to worry every moment of their lives (working and non-working alike) that they won’t be able to impress their superiors on their working skills alone?</p>
<p>This is all shedding light on the true nature of our teacher shortage…</p>
<p>Poor pay, lots of unpaid overtime, and having to deal with this kind of bureaucracy is more than I would ever want to deal with in my career!</p>
<p>Are teachers at CVHS, those who are 25 and the parents of children of their own, not allowed, under their contracts, to drink alcohol?</p>
<p>After all the things ophiolte lists, any wonder there’s a teacher’s union? Cause there’s always people out there willing to tell you how you “should be”.</p>
<p>Typically brainless college administrators…what do you expect?</p>
<p>I wonder why she didn’t include Conestoga Valley schools in the lawsuit for saying they “would not accept any more MU student teachers if MU did not punish Plantiff swiftly and severely.” That appears to be the catalyst for MU’s sudden and drastic action against Ms. Snyder. I wish TSG provided a link to the complete complaint. What exactly is she asking for?</p>
<p>this should be a link to the actual complaint; she wants a teacher certificate to be issued along with damages and fees</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.courthousenews.com/Millersville.pdf[/url]”>http://www.courthousenews.com/Millersville.pdf</a></p>
<p>I hope Millersville has some good insurance. She’s going to collect a nice chunk of it.</p>
<p>Where these people on crack? I hope she takes them for every cent they’ve got.</p>
<p>scanmom,</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. Interesting reading. I will be equally as interested to see MU’s response. I don’t think MU took the plaintiff seriously, even after she secured counsel. In fact, I wonder if MU even involved their own counsel after they knew it had the potential to enter the courts. I’m not a lawyer and do not know how MU will defend itself. Unless the facts are quite different than stated in the complaint, they will probably attempt to say that plaintiff’s acceptance of the BA degree settled the disciplinary matter and that she is not entitled to further relief. If it were me, I’d claim my decision to accept the BA degree on graduation eve was made under duress out of fear of not graduating at all and that it was never made clear to me that acceptance of the degree constituted any kind of settlement.</p>