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Tamara Hoover Resigns

Posted in Education, Law, Photo by Elliott Back on August 20th, 2006.

After a friend took photos of schoolteacher Tamara Hoover in the buff and posted them to Flickr, a scandal erupted in Austin, Texas. Rather than go through a formal hearing process and attempt to stay on at the school, Ms. Hoover opted to resign. According to The Statesman, district officials said:

tamara-hoover.jpg

“The district believes strongly in an individual’s right of free expression, but as we all know, such rights are not absolute. The district and Ms. Hoover disagreed as to the propriety of explicit nude photographs of her and others in sexually suggestive poses being placed on the Internet, and its impact on students and families, and thus, on Ms. Hoover’s ability to be an appropriate role model and effective classroom teacher in AISD.”

Not all is lost–the extra publicity may help the art show based on these events, and Tamara Hoover will probably be receiving a $14,850 severance bonus. Personally, I think it’s the wrong move. Labelling her photos “sexually explicit” is probably a gross overstatement, given the artistic and casual nature of the shots. On the other hand, this is a classic example of a conflict between private life and one’s job. You can’t be two seperate people–your real identity will some day inevitably meet with your online or private identity.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 20th, 2006 at 6:33 pm and is tagged with tamara hoover, casual nature, aisd, free expression, district officials, overstatement, schoolteacher, classroom teacher, propriety, private life, severance, role model, statesman, seperate, buff, austin texas, scandal, publicity, conflict, photographs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.

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    Why don't you get a copy of all 600 or so prints of the entire photo collection Ms. H had originally posted on her website. The AISD will give you a full copy and a copy of the deposition as recorded during the hearings held when Ms. H. was being questioned about her actions. That is how you can get at the "real" truth of this matter and not just what is printed in the newspapers. Remember this--she was responsible for the morals and values of students ages 14 to 18 years old.
 

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