BC High Students Punished For Taking Inappropriate Photos Of Female Teachers
BOSTON (CBS) - Administrators at Boston College High School are working on strategies and policies to address a problem on the Dorchester campus. According to students and school officials, some of the students at BC High have been getting in trouble for using their cell phones to take inappropriate photographs of female teachers and staff.
The school's principal, Stephen Hughes, sent an e-mail to students' parents after one such incident this semester. Hughes wrote that one young man "had surreptitiously photographed members of the female faculty and staff in a most inappropriate manner."
"Once discovered," Hughes continues, "the faculty was informed, an accountability board was convened, and the student was separated from the school."
Many students who spoke to WBZ, both on- and off-camera, confirmed that similar incidents are not uncommon. According to students, those incidents sometimes involve a young man taking a candid photo of a female staffer or teacher without her knowledge. In other cases, the photos can be more graphic, including so-called "upskirting" pictures in which a camera is slipped under a woman's dress or skirt.
Senior Brett D'Alelio estimates that such problems have cropped up "three or four times" in his years at BC High.
"It's an issue of students taking a picture of members of the female faculty without their knowledge and keeping that for their own personal use," D'Alelio explained. "It is a little bit uncomfortable within the community knowing that there's a problem like that. But I guess they're trying to do as much as they can to address it at the moment."
Principal Hughes told parents he held a series of assemblies for the all-boy student body in which he told them BC High is a community where "all, females in particular, should feel free from objectification or diminishment."
According to students, another, more recent, incident this semester landed a different student in suspension and has resulted in a new school policy: All student cell phones are now to be kept in lockers during class time.
While some students chafe at that restriction, others, like freshman Matthew Nagy, say the larger problem needs to be solved.
"Obviously it's a disappointment," Nagy says of the upskirting and other photography. "This is not the kind of community we want to build."
Of the students who have been reprimanded, sophomore Ethan Harris has no sympathy.
"It's their fault, their mistake, they goofed up," Harris says. "It's their consequence for doing what they did."
Michele M. Daly, Senior Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Boston College High School, released the following statement to WBZ:
"Like everyone dedicated to the nurturance of young people, BC High is vigilant about our students' access to the Internet and the potential damage to anyone's privacy in the use of electronic devices. Without commenting on specific events in order to insure the privacy of our families, periodically BC High, like all schools, has to take disciplinary measures and adjust our procedures to protect our community members. We will continue to address the issues raised by the use of electronic devices and the challenges posed to us by the digital age."
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