Nude pics bring suspensions for Pascack students

Monday, June 9, 2008
BY LESLIE BRODY
STAFF WRITER

Seven ninth-graders at Pascack Valley High School have been suspended for the rest of the school year for distributing racy photos of middle school girls via cell phones and school-issued laptops.

A student who saw the photos on a laptop tipped off a teacher, and the administration alerted Hillsdale police last week, district Superintendent Benedict Tantillo III said today.

More than 20 girls who are now in ninth grade were in the photos, the superintendent said. Some pictures appeared to have been taken two or three years ago, and some of the subjects moved to private high school instead of Pascack Valley. The girls were seen from the waist up in various states of undress, typically with bare breasts, he said.

“I have not seen the pictures,” he added. “I don’t want to see the pictures.”

Citing a school inquiry, he said it was unclear whether the shots were self-portraits or snapped by others but none appeared to have been filmed on district property. He said one boy had asked girls to send him photos so they could star in a “gallery” he was assembling.

“As a father of three girls, I can’t imagine (any young women) taking pictures of themselves and sending them around knowing they would be distributed,” Tantillo said.

Cases of teens sending around lewd cell phone pictures of their bodies have been reported in New York, Connecticut, Alabama, Utah, Pennsylvania, Texas and Connecticut. Psychologists say the phenomenon reflects young hormones and impulsivity, with technology increasing the potential for long-term humiliation. It may also reflect a vogue for exhibitionism, as demonstrated on MySpace, YouTube and other Web sites.

Craig Fabrikant, a Westwood psychologist who works with many northern Bergen teens, said that sadly, trading nude cell phone pictures is common around here these days.

Why?

“The novelty,” he said. “It’s a way of getting attention. . . Kids today, in terms of sexuality, are much more open than previous generations. The promiscuity of it is psychologically worrisome. It’s degrading to our value system.”

So are parents supposed to spy on their teens’ cell phone snapshots now to censor the scandalous? “That’s a good question and opens up a whole area of you-don’t-trust-me-mom,” Fabrikant said. “Is there a good answer? I don’t have it.”

Pascack Valley notified parents of the unsettling incident last week.

“This constitutes possession and or distribution of child pornography and it is a violation of the district’s acceptable use policy,” high school Principal Thomas DeMaio said in a June 5 letter to parents.

The letter said the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office had issued a 48-hour grace period to let students delete these items from their computers, cell phones and iPods. Anyone found to have these images after 48 hours risked being charged with the 4th degree crime of possession of child pornography, it said.

Joseph Macellaro, chief of detectives of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, said today that his staff’s investigation is continuing.

“We are still looking into it, and we will make a decision based on what we find out,” he said. “It is more than likely there won’t be any charges.”

Hillsdale Police Chief Chip Stalter said his department was letting the school handle the incident as an internal disciplinary matter. Laws against child pornography were meant to be applied to “pedophiles and child predators, not high school hi-jinx,” he said.

Two of his staffers — Patrolman Jeffrey Angermeyer, who is on the prosecutor’s computer crimes task force, and school resource officer Sean Kavanagh — lectured the entire high school on Friday to warn students against the dangers of sending sexy photos to even one friend. They stressed that once photos enter cyberspace, they can be seen by college admissions officers and potential employers as well as lascivious voyeurs.

“These things you think are very innocent and done in fun . . . can ruin good chances for jobs later in life and cause great embarrassment,” he said.

Parents picking up their teens from the high school on Monday expressed dismay and alarm. Some students said the stern lecture from police made them more aware of the consequences of such risky communications.

Anthony Delchop of Hillsdale, the parent of a 14-year-old freshman boy, was sympathetic to the students. “I’m sure the ones who are hurt the most are the parents of the girls and the boys who are being punished,” Delchop added.

“You’re always worried,” said Gina Pille of Hillsdale, the parent of a sophomore girl. “I don’t even know what they do on the computer.”

Joanne Ramella, of Hillsdale, the mother of a freshman, said she came from a generation that did not use computers. She said her daughter, from a more sheltered private school, had never been so close to such turmoil.

“I’m disappointed,” Ramella said, as her daughter nodded in agreement. “What’s important is educating young daughters what not to do and our young men on how to be gentlemen.”

Sandra Russo of Washington Township has two nephews attending Pascack Valley. She criticized the school’s computer protections and said the school should be more careful in checking out laptops it issues.

“I would be furious if I were a parent and this were on their computers,” Russo said. “It is absolutely crazy. Where is the security?”

Tantillo said the school’s spam filters blocked pictures from entering its laptops via email. The offending photos must have been loaded onto somebody’s pen drive, which was then plugged into laptops. Raunchy photos were found on six or seven laptops, and on a cell phone confiscated from a male student. The seven suspended students also lost their privileges to access school technology networks and school email.

Staff Writers Evonne Coutros and Kibret Markos contributed to this story.

http://www.northjersey.co...scack.html

It gets them what they want.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Attention? They weren't brought up right.

It gets them what they want.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

So instead of girls flashing boys at the back of the school yard they are sending pics via phones, so much easier to do.

This is not surprising, nor is this kind of thing really a new phenomenon.

From NorthJersey.com:



This story is crazy. Why are girls sending nekkid photos of themselves to boys?

more proof of liberalism polluting our society and children.....god help us all

So instead of girls flashing boys at the back of the school yard they are sending pics via phones, so much easier to do.

This is not surprising, nor is this kind of thing really a new phenomenon.

"But it's an amazing amount of kids involved with this -- 20 -- in an affluent school district. This isn't, you know, the inner city; you would think that these kids would have some kind of a values system."

http://www.nowpublic.com/...ll-oreilly

Not to turn this into a P&R thread, but I have to post what Bill O'Reilly thinks about this story:

sextonseven said:

Wealthy areas are worse than the inner city!

JustErin said:

My school sucked. No one ever told me any of this was going on behind my back.

Not to turn this into a P&R thread, but I have to post what Bill O'Reilly thinks about this story:

thepope2the9s said:

okay...which banned orger are you?

sextonseven said:

damn, even as the gay fairy princess I knew this shit was happening. I tried to join and watch but the boys pushed me away and wouldn't let me

sextonseven said:

He's such an ass!!!!!

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

I bet you went to a school in the inner city.

sextonseven said:

I did!