In case study Unprofessional Conduct the case was about a teacher who has been fired from her job and has lost all her teaching privileges, including get her license revoked due to her sexual preferences. Mrs. Pettit is a married woman, that has been teaching students with mental disabilities for going on thirteen years. Teaching young children with disabilities requires patience, devotion, and skills.
Mrs. Pettit was a hardworking teacher that enjoyed what she did despite her actions outside of work. She and her husband viewed various lifestyles that were nonconventional including wife swapping, which was very popular at the time. Mrs. Pettit wore disguises whenever she was out engaging in activities that could jeopardize her teaching career. She was very aware of what she was doing but felt the reason to keep her work life and her personal life separate from each other. Their beliefs were broadcast on television, one reason disguises were worn.
The Pettit’s engaged in several activities. A year later Mrs. Pettit and her husband joined ‘ The Swingers’ a private club that promotes diverse sexual activities among its members. At one of those parties Sergeant Berk, an undercover police officer, observed Mrs. Pettit preforming oral sex on 3 different men in a one-hour period. With this happening around the 1960s, it was against the law to perform a crime of this nature and not get punished for it.
127 our experts are availableright now
She was arrested and charged with oral copulation, which at the time broke the California Penal Code. She took a plea bargain, pleading guilty to the misdemeanor of outraging public decency and paid a fine so the school renewed her teaching contract for the next year. After 2 years went by, the disciplinary proceedings were initiated against her. The state board of education found no reason to complain, but the board revoked her license. There were three school administrators who had testified that in their opinion, her conduct proved she was unfit to teach. The staff worried she would interject her views of sexual morality into the classroom and did not think she could act as a moral example to students.
Although she has never acted differently amongst her thirteen years of teaching giving them a reason to fire and revoke her license, Mrs. Pettit didn’t deserve to be humiliated in such way and will now have to live with this for the rest of her life. For this very reason is the main reason why a lot of people would like to keep there private life private. It went from one person knowing, to the entire school knowing, to the public eye. For that, the staff can at least give her some type of award being that she was public humiliated on such grounds when didn’t no one had to know about any of this.
I believed that the Board of Education violated her privacy simply because she had been teaching for so long and not once did her outside life interfered with work life. The way they went about firing her was not right. The other teacher had no business telling her business to any of the other workers, especially with her and husband is in it together. They didn’t think that that could have jeopardized their career and hard things may have got after that. When they had the undercover police officer, Sergeant Bark comes and view how she acts when not being professional was wrong. They had no business going that far when all they had to do was go directly to her. The staff failed to tell her before starting to rumor information that should be private.
Mrs. Pettit behavior was neither unprofessional nor immoral because it had nothing to do with her teaching career. Throughout her teaching she didn’t try to teach the kids no wrong doings or harm them in any way, saying that she is unfit to teach. They have to look it at that the kids are mentally disable. The staff couldn’t bring up one bad thing about Mrs. Pettit when it came time for her to go to court. It was far from rational and all of it could have been avoided. I feel a way being rational since they considered doing something about was, they could put her on a brief suspension and not revoke her license and getting her fired from doing something she loved doing.
If teacher have good performance inside the classroom, they should be held a higher moral standard outside the classroom to a certain extent. I say that because some things that ae being said from the kids are being taught at home nine times out of ten. They are sent to school to get educated and discipline from home. In this case she’s dealing with mentally challenged kids. They for one don’t have a clue about what’s going on with this entire situation. Secondly, it’s sad that it takes for another teacher to see her, in disguise, and go tell her business to someone else besides her. Thirdly, they rarely paid attention to that part of the school until they heard information about a teacher that’s teaching kids with intellectual disabilities.
When it all came down Mrs. Pettit was far from unprofessional or immoral. She was doing something she love and over time she appeared to perform with the best of her abilities. She was arrested for acts that were supposed to be private and strictly confidential, the reason for the disguises. There were no evidence and could not have affected her teaching. Not only was she affected by this but her husband as well. If there weren’t any secret surveillance, the whole issue wouldn’t have been brought up. The actions that took place were consensual and took place amongst willing adults.
