Teacher’s blog draws probe from system

Profane comments irk parents

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

In a MySpace blog dated April 26, apparently created by Southern Middle School foreign language teacher Anu Prabhakara, the teacher expressed her disappointment with parents.

Prabhakara later apparently discussed the writings with some of her students through the Web site, leading to an investigation by the school system.

‘‘Why are teachers, the government, the school system, the FCC, and everyone and their mother (except the mothers and fathers) taking responsibility to teach the kids respect, accountability, responsibility, etc.,” Prabhakara wrote.

‘‘ ... When the [expletive] did parents decide that their kids are not responsible for anything they do?” she wrote.

MySpace is a social networking Web site that allows users to create profiles, e-mail and message friends, post pictures and write an online journal or blog.

The blog posting goes on to read that Prabhakara is disappointed in parents’ lack of parenting skills.

Susan Lloyd of Lusby, a parent of a Southern Middle School student, said she found out about the blog through her child who learned about it from fellow classmates. Lloyd said she disagreed with Prabhakara allowing students access to the blog site.

Lloyd said she supports Prabhakara’s freedom of speech but thinks she may have gone too far in making these thoughts available to her students.

‘‘She crossed a line she shouldn’t have crossed,” Lloyd said.

Under the blog is an area where ‘‘friends” of the MySpace user can post comments on the blog. Two girls who appeared to be Prabhakara’s students, commented on the blog by writing, ‘‘Wow Mrs. [Prabhakara], I didn’t know we were THAT irresponsible,” and ‘‘Someone had a bad day. I mean ... come on, we’re not that bad.”

Prabhakara replied to each of the girls’ comments. The response to the above posting read, ‘‘Yeah, I know. [J]ust a kid in my 3rd period class and his [expletive] mother.”

Prabhakara replied to the other girl by writing that she loves her students and most of them are responsible and accountable.

‘‘I love my kids! I think their parents did a really good job in terms of teaching responsibility. I wish sometimes I could have them at a special art school, so that I didn’t have to worry about so many dumb rules,” she replied.

The Calvert County public school system was made aware of the blog over the weekend, according to Robin Welsh, assistant superintendent of legal and administrative services. Welsh said the situation is under full investigation at this time.

Welsh said there are three different policies the school system looks to for situations such as Prabhakara’s blog.

She said she and the school system are reviewing policies such as administrative disciplinary action, acceptable electronic mail use and acceptable Internet use while investigating this case to determine if there will be consequences in the matter. Welsh said there are acceptable Internet use polices for students as well, and that each case — whether it be a student or a teacher — is handled on an individual basis.

Prabhakara is not in the school at this time while the investigation is continuing, Welsh said.

E-mail Gretchen Phillips at gphillips@somdnews.com.