Posted on 05/09/2007 7:50:46 AM PDT by agent_delta
MILLERSVILLE, Pa. - A 27-year-old Millersville University graduate filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the college for denying her an education degree and teaching certificate after a controversial Internet photograph surfaced last year shortly before graduation.
The picture shows Stacy Snyder of Strasburg wearing a pirate hat while drinking from a plastic "Mr. Goodbar" cup. The photograph taken during a 2005 Halloween party was posted on Snyder's MySpace Web page with the caption "Drunken Pirate."
"The day before graduation, the college confronted me about the picture," Snyder said Thursday. "I was told I wouldn't be receiving my education degree or teaching certificate because the photo was 'unprofessional.' "
Snyder said she apologized for the photograph, but Jane S. Bray, dean of the School of Education, and Provost Vilas A. Prabhu refused to issue the bachelor of science degree in education and teaching certificate Snyder earned.
Instead, the college issued Snyder a bachelor of arts degree in English.
Millersville University spokesperson Janet Kacskos referred questions to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education spokesman Kenn Marshall, who declined comment.
Snyder, a single mother of boys ages 9 and 7, works as a nanny for a family in Lititz.
"I dreamed about being a teacher for a long time," Snyder said. "When I was growing up, I spent more time with my teachers than my own parents, and it inspired me to someday make a positive impact on children."
Attorney Mark W. Voigt of Plymouth Meeting filed the lawsuit after failing to negotiate a hearing with Prabhu and Bray.
"Stacy deserves to be a teacher," Voigt said Thursday. "The bottom line is we want the college to bestow the degree and teaching certificate that Stacy earned during four years of hard work and sacrifice."
The lawsuit also seeks $75,000 in compensatory damages.
The university, Bray, Prabhu and professor/student-teacher supervisor J. Barry Girvin are named in the suit.
Voight writes in the lawsuit that Snyder, a dean's list student, performed her student-teaching requirements in 2006 at Conestoga Valley High School.
Teachers Deann Buffington and Nicole Reinking advised Snyder.
On May 8, Buffington called Snyder at home about an "issue" about her "professionalism" as a teacher, according to the lawsuit.
Reinking viewed the "Drunken Pirate" picture of Snyder on myspace.com and showed it to Buffington.
Buffington gave it to Girvin, who told Snyder "she may lose her teaching certificate due to the incident," according to the lawsuit.
Girvin also issued a final student/teacher evaluation of Snyder and granted "superior" or "competent" ratings in all areas except "professionalism." He gave Snyder and "unsatisfactory" rating, according to the lawsuit.
"There were errors in judgment that relate to Pennsylvania's Code of Professional Practice and Conduct for Educators," Girvin wrote in the evaluation.
On May 11, Girvin, Buffington and Reinking showed the "Drunken Pirate" photograph to Snyder, according to the lawsuit.
Buffington told Snyder that posting the photograph on the Internet was "unprofessional" and Conestoga Valley students might find it offensive.
Buffington also accused Snyder of "incompetence" and "claimed she should have been removed from her student-teaching position months ago."
Conestoga Valley officials told the college their students wouldn't be allowed to perform student-teacher requirements there if Snyder was not punished, according to the lawsuit.
Bray met with Snyder May 12. She accused Snyder of "promoting underage drinking through her 'drunken pirate' photo. Bray then stripped Snyder of her education degree and teaching certification, according to the lawsuit.
Snyder graduated the next day with an English degree.
The more I think about it, the more I keep focusing on this:
“Ms. Snyder’s Web site says further that students keep asking her why she will not apply to teach at Conestoga Valley and asks, ‘Do you think it would hurt me to tell them the real reason (or who the problem was)?”
Assuming this really was on her website, what she’s basically saying to the students is “Gee that Mrs ..... (whoever her evaluator was) sure is an A*****e!” And keep in mind that Mrs Whoever is, I assume, a fellow teacher.
That’s very unprofessional. Frankly, I don’t think I’d hire her.
Of course we don’t know the whole story, but it’ll all come out at the trial.
I read it but it didn’t sink in. I realize she didn’t get what she earned, but what I’m trying to understand is what is the point of giving her the alternate degree? That, I don’t get.
You might be right. But I would think that a school district would not threaten to sever it’s relationship with a school unless there were issues behind this one student—like they had also gotten other students who did not measure up in their eyes. And if they did not like what they were seeing or experiencing from this one student that was so serious, it seems to me that they would have talked with her supervisor from MU. My guess is that maybe they didn’t like the feedback that they got back from MU.
PA has recently changed their standards and education schools are having to change their curriculum. I’ve been in an English Education program in a small PA college several hours from MU. This past year, our curriculum and required courses for graduation changed because of state changes, and students this year and probably for the next year or two are somewhat being caught in the switch. There could be any number of issues going on here and the school is using this student as their scapegoat. If she really is that bad and the school had produced good student teachers in the past, then the school district has problems.
You can say that again. Thank god there was no MySpace back in the late 60’s when I was in school, a whole dadgummed generation would be baby sitter today.
Let's see... Dean's list and evaluated as superior or competent in all areas except professionalism. Where else did she fall short? They said she was unprofessional because of the picture.
If that's it methinks the school is screwed (in more ways than one). Take 'em to the cleaners, Stacy!
Trying to avoid a lawsuit is all I can figure.
If she had held a rally supporting Hamas she would have been given an award and an extra pretty rope to go with her graduation gown.
Can you make me a suit?
Maybe a pirate law-Suit out of that whole cloth?
So what?
I THINK what the article says is that the complaint issues from two supervisors at the school where she is a student teacher.
Her work at the college is fine, and her grades are fine. The two supervisors say that she should not be a teacher because of unprofessional conduct, and evidently the bureaucrats in the state education system agreed, either under pressure or because they agreed with the evaluations.
This seems to be a question of attitude and behavior, not of intelligence or coursework. And as others on the thread have pointed out, the photo is only one aspect of the charge of unprofessional conduct or poor teaching, which her lawyers chose to release to the newspapers. There may be much more to it.
The article says that she is a single mother of two kids. That suggests that in the past, at least, she was not very well in control of her behavior.
That’s what I’m thinking, too. But, maybe that will just add fuel to the fire. I hope she gets a cool million for her heartache!
I was almost through college before I inquired about certification. They wanted another 2 years...mostly in English, which I did all my upper division electives in anyway! Only one or two courses in Science.
It would have made better sense to get a Masters and teach junior college.
The complaint that I was “judgmental” about a 3.15 average was both truthful, but also indicative of a question of my judgment. I’m just giving my basis for saying that a person graduating as an English major with a 3.15 average isn’t the smartest person in the world.
Someone might wonder what criteria I use in making my statement. So I’m giving some evidence of my experience for purpose of comparison, in this case the guy that beat me out for University Valedictorian by managing to get straight A’s for 4 years as an English major, something I could not achieve in Electrical Engineering.
No, thank God, I don’t know squat about getting a teaching certificate in Pennsylvania, or anywhere else for that matter. I do know, from personal experience, that “post grad” courses - even those with fieldwork - are evaluated.
Did she fail the course or not? That is a question of fact, not a rhetorical question.
I have zero respect for people and institutions that hide behind such 'privacy' excuses. If the only other interested party (Snyder herself) has given permission for them to address these things publicly, then they should. If she hasn't, they should say so and put the ball back in her court.
But being less then brilliant is not incompetence. What is interesting in all this is, just how compentent shoud a student teacher be? They are just interns. It takes 4 years in engineering to get folks close to up-to speed.
I think you’re all missing the point. This is a case of not awarding her the Education degree based on an ‘assumed’ moral turpitude.
And Charles, someone else may very possibly have achieved the straight A’s - in Electrical Engineering - that you could not. The person who bested you in grades is perhaps better suited to his field than you and is not necessarily your intellectual inferior.
I am amazed we can even remember that far back.
Can we determine from the articles we've read about her that this 27 year old woman with two children wasn't divorced from a previous marriage?
Just want to establish that before we call her children bastards.
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