Akin to the Naked Teacher Principle is what this fiasco illustrates. If you allow conversations to make their way to the web and they insult or denigrate individuals who have to trust you or work with you in your employment, you cannot complain when your name is mud and your job is toast.

Some teachers and and staff employed by the Bangor Public Schools were relaxing at a local bar, and started playing a game  called “Fuck, Marry, or Kill.” The game challenges the players to name three celebrities they would marry, have intimate relations with or kill, but the educators decided to substitute students and other teachers for the celebrities.Some the students named as desired murder victims or sex partners were special needs students. What fun!

No ethics alarms sounded. Someone made a video, nobody grabbed the phone and stomped on , and the video ended up on YouTube.

Parents were not pleased.

“It’s disturbing to know that these are our educators,” said one.”They are in charge of protecting our children, keeping our children safe, and the fact that they just blew that out of the water shows their character and shows that maybe they’re not right for this job.” “It was heartbreaking,” said anothee, the mother of a 15-year-old student in the district who was named in the video. “My heart sank, and I was disgusted.””You teach your kids to respect authority, and then how do you respect authority figures when they behave like that?” added her husband.

Initially, the secretary to the superintendent resigned, two teachers were suspended and four other teachers were verbally reprimanded. The Bangor Schools’ attorney  announced there would be no further action taken against the staff members involved.  “We’re going to be following up and monitoring how these teachers do,” said the lawyer. “I think they’ve learned their lesson from all of this.”

I don’t think it matters whether they have or not. Would you want to have your son or daughter’s teacher joking about having sex with them or killing them on YouTube? Would you trust such teachers? Would you trust their supervisors? Would you trust the school?Should you? Is that responsible parenting?

Two more teachers have resigned. The school, and maybe the whole system it is part of, needs an ethics audit, an overhaul, a house-cleaning, and training.

Or do we just say,  rephrasing the famous last line of “Chinatown,”

“Forget it, Jake. It’s public education.”

?