A Union County High school teacher has resigned after a student stole personal pictures off her cell phone.
Leigh Anne Arthur says one of her students took the pictures while she was out of the classroom and distributed it to other students.
Arthur has been a teacher in Union county for over 13 years, but that came to an end two weeks ago.
“He opened up my gallery for my pictures and he found inappropriate pictures of myself and he took pictures from his cell phone of that and then he told the whole class that he would send them to whoever wanted them,” says Arthur.
Arthur says the student warned her that something bad was coming.
“The student who actually took my phone and took pictures turned around and told me your day of reckoning is coming,” says Arthur.
Superintendent David Eubanks says the school has concern that Arthur could be contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Arthur said this wasn’t her fault and that she did not knowingly leave her cell phone sitting on her desk knowing that those pictures were on there.
She says even though her privacy was invaded by the student, the school district still wanted her to resign from her teaching position, which she did the following week.
“The whole premise of my privacy being invaded his being ignored and that’s what’s wrong,” said Arthur.
She says according to school district policy, the student should have been expelled, but to her knowledge, has not happened yet.
Arthur has one last message for the student who did this: “I forgive you. It don’t make it anymore right. But what’s done is done and I hope you learned your lesson. And I hope that you learned from this mistake and I hope that you have a wife one day that you treat like gold and you won’t want this to ever happen to her.”
Arthur says parents and students are signing a petition to have her teach again, and the amount of support has been overwhelming.
Despite the fact that Arthur is now out of a job, she relayed a message to the student via WSPA: “I forgive you. It don’t make it anymore right. But what’s done is done and I hope you learned your lesson. And I hope that you learned from this mistake and I hope that you have a wife one day that you treat like gold and you won’t want this to ever happen to her.”
