Substitute Teacher Could See Jail Time For Exposing Kids to Porn

A 40-year-old former substitute teacher was caught red-handed surfing the web for porn in the presence of her 7th grade students on the classroom computer. Julie Amero of Windham Connecticut said that it was not her fault but that it was pop-ups from spyware present on the classroom computers prior to the teachers arrival.

The jury didn't believe that Amero was just the victim of spyware and convicted her of four counts of endangering a child. Each count could nab her a 10-year sentence. She faces her sentencing hearing on March 2nd.

According to Amero, she arrived to teach a 7th grade classroom on the morning of October 19, 2004 at Kelly Middle School in Norwich CT. She stated that she stepped out into the hall for a moment and returned to find two students at the computer at her teaching desk. The site they were looking at was new-hair-styles.com, but Amero said she saw a series of web browser windows opening that displayed pornographic material and that no matter how fast she closed one window, another series would open up.

Amero said that she then ran down the hall to the teacher's lounge looking for help and that none of the teachers there would help her. Amero further said that another told her to just ignore the ads and that they were a common annoyance. The prosecution has asked her why she did not turn it off and she said that the teacher that she was substituting for asked her not to log him off. The prosecutor then asked why she did not just throw a jacket or sweater over the computer and she replied that she had not worn one that warm day.

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Several of the children told their parents of the incident and it was they who demanded action of the school administrators. Amero was told three days later that she was not welcome back to the school, and shortly after that, the local police arrested her for risking injury to her students.

The prosecutors presented a computer expert that said that the time-stamped logs showed that someone had accessed an "adult-themed" website by way of the browser by clicking a link or typing in an address. But he further noted that the school was running Windows 98 and the school's firewall license had expired four years prior to the incident and the machines lacked any anti-virus and anti-spyware tools. But none of that had any effect on the jury. The defense further claims that they were unable to present further evidence that showed that there were two Trojans found on the school computers.

This may not have been an isolated incident in the Connecticut school district as it was further reported that the students had very little restrictions as to what sites they could surf on the Internet. One teacher spoke on the condition of anonymity and said that if anyone were to check the history of any of the student computers, they would find that they had indeed been to some inappropriate sites.

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