Topless photo teacher ‘older and respected’

A TEACHER whose topless image is being circulated on social media is an older and respected member of staff in a south Dublin school.

At least one transition year student was suspended last week after sharing the topless image of his teacher, which he found on a computer that she had lent to him.

The story was initially reported by the Herald newspaper, to whom the school in question refused to comment.

The boy took a screenshot of the image on his phone and sent it by Snapchat to his schoolfriends with the caption ‘when you find your teacher’s nudes’.

The image went viral within hours.

Initially, it was reported that the image was on a school computer which the teacher had lent to the student.

However, a source close to the school said the computer may have belonged to the teacher herself.

‘Either way, it looks like her photos had synced with this computer and she was unaware of it,’ he said. ‘It’s an awful thing to have happened to her.

‘It’s unlikely the image just popped up either.

‘This woman has worked hard for years to get where she is.’

However, a mother of a pupil at the school argued on Facebook that the teacher should have been punished, not the student.

The woman, named Collette, who has a daughter at the school, posted: ‘No way should the boys have been suspended. It was her (the teacher’s) fault.’

Another mother of one of the students wrote: ‘The adolescent is not a horrible or bad person. He is completely normal.

‘The boy did what any adolescent boy would do. If anyone thinks that their darling 16-year-old boy would do otherwise, they are not living in the real world.’

The parents of the boys involved are reported to be furious that their children were sanctioned.

Meanwhile, the Teachers Union of Ireland has denied putting pressure on the school to sanction the pupils.

‘Student behavioural policies are a matter for a school and unions do not get involved,’ said a spokesperson.

However, a source close to the school said the teachers in the school had to ‘act decisively to protect their colleague’.

‘The union has to be seen to send out a strong message on behaviour like this,’ he said.

‘The use of social media to bully teachers, particularly female teachers, is on the increase.’

Asked whether it had intervened in the dispute, a spokesperson for the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) said: ‘The ASTI can only confirm that it represents teachers at the school.’

The principal of the Dublin school refused to respond to a request for comment this weekend.

The Irish Mail on Sunday also spoke to a board member at the school, who declined to comment.

‘Social media bullying of teachers is increasing’