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1. Students fake teachers’ profiles on TikTok and face no real consequences

By Beth Ann Rosica
 

Students at Great Valley Middle School in Chester County created twenty-two fictitious TikTok accounts of their teachers, according to a statement issued by the Great Valley School District on June 13, 2024. While the incidents occurred back in February this year, they were only recently reported upon by the New York Times. The counterfeited accounts contained disparaging posts, ranging from racist to homophobic to pornographic, according to the Great Valley Teachers’ Union president’s comments made at the March 18, 2024 meeting.

Neil Young, a veteran social studies teacher at Great Valley Middle School, who is married with four children, was one of the victims of the students’ destructive behavior. Students created a fake account with his name that insinuated that he was gay and involved with another teacher at the school. The students combined pictures to make it appear that the two were in bed together.

Why It Matters. Young disagrees with the district’s characterization of the egregious behavior. He said that students used their district-issued iPads to take some of the pictures used in the TikTok posts in the school building during school hours.

Additionally, he does not believe that the district adequately investigated the situation. Rather, “teachers did a lot of the investigative work on their own” to discover the fake accounts.

Young also faults law enforcement for their lack of appropriate responsiveness to the issue. According to him, teachers contacted both local police precincts and the Chester County DA’s office, and the concerns were “blown off.”

Quotable. “There is nothing more dangerous than not holding children accountable,” said Neil Young, a middle school teacher who was the victim of a fake TikTok account created by his students.

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2. Second ‘hidden’ death discovered at troubled Delco prison

By Todd Shepherd
 

Documents newly obtained by Broad + Liberty show the Delaware County prison had a sixth death in 2022, but the fatality was of the type that allowed the county to escape having to count it on its death tally reporting to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. 

In addition to reporting such numbers to the state, the prison must also report deaths in order to comply with the federal Death in Custody Reporting Act, or DCRA. If this newly discovered death was not reported to the federal government, the prison may have run afoul of that law.

Why It Matters.  Rapp’s death came at a time of remarkable transition for the prison. In October 2021, the county voted to end nearly three decades of using private companies to manage the prison.

Even though the first official day of government management wouldn’t come until April 6, 2022, the date was merely a formality in the transfer of power. The county had already selected Williams as the county’s warden months earlier, giving her a start date of January 31. Sources with intimate knowledge of the prison say when Williams was installed, the facility was de facto under government management, and she had full control of the daily decision making from her first moments on the job.

Williams is familiar with the method of getting inmates quickly released from custody when in the throes of a medical emergency.

Prior to becoming the Delaware County warden, she was the deputy warden of health services for Allegheny County.  While there, she defended the quick-release-from-custody method according to minutes from Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board meetings.

Quotable. “The letter and spirit of the federal Death in Custody Reporting Act is clear: An inmate who is transferred to a medical facility and dies there should be reported.” – the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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3. Lightning Round

• Guy Ciarrocchi: Teachers’ union president is just another political boss

• Beth Ann Rosica: Pennsylvania Senate makes smart moves for student success

• Upper Darby pays back over $40,000 spent on toy drives, holiday dinners

• Thom Nickels: Philadelphia’s Walk of Fame used to be about the music

• Rep. Seth Grove: The broken budget process

5. What we're reading

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? It’s called the Biden campaign. There are any number of articles you could read about Biden’s steadfast refusal to withdraw from a campaign that his fellow Democrats increasingly see as doomed. Mark Leibovitch’s piece in the Atlantic this week is as good a vantage point as any to look at the growing dismay among left wing partisans. “President Joe Biden,” he writes, “is acting like one of history’s most negligent and pigheaded leaders at a crucial moment, and right now, we are all pedestrians.”