UNION COUNTY, SC – A South Carolina High School Teacher has resigned, and a student is facing charges after nude pictures went public.
Leigh Anne Arthur walked away from Union County High School and a job that she loved.
“I absolutely loved teaching mechatronics, mechatronics is mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer programming.” Arthur told WYFF.
She says even though her privacy was invaded by the student, the school district still wanted her to resign after 13 years of service.
Arthur says one of her students in the Career and Technology Center leaked a risqué photo of her to classmates and others.
“He took pictures off my phone and sent them from him, from his phone.” Said Arthur.
Arthur says the pictures were taken for her husband, and she accidentally left them on her phone.
She says her phone was unlocked on her desk, while she was monitoring the halls as students changed classes.
“He had to hit my apps button and to open up all my apps and then open my gallery.” Says Arthur, “He knows right and wrong, he had the ultimate decision to take pictures of my pictures and he had the ultimate decision to send them out.”
The school superintendent says Arthur left her phone unlocked, thereby making the risque photo available to students.
Some of Arthurs students have started an online petition asking that Arthur get her job back, but she isn’t sure she wants it.
Arthur says she forgives the student saying, “He’s 16, he’s going to make stupid decisions, we all made stupid decisions at 16.”
The student has been charged with Computer Crimes Act and Aggravated Voyeurism, according to Union Police Chief Sam White.
The juvenile is being detained at the Department of Juvenile Justice in Columbia.
