Dear O.L. Smith Community,  

 

I would like to take just a moment to provide you with information regarding an issue that occurred in one of our classrooms on March 13, 2019.  

 

A substitute teacher, contracted by the company that provides substitutes to the district,  went to play a video pertaining to information being presented in the class and unfortunately, pornographic images were displayed on the video screen for 30 to 45 seconds.  The substitute teacher was immediately removed from the class and interviewed by myself and our School Resource Officer. Both our Human Resource Office and our Technology Department began an investigation into this incident.  

 

When this incident occurred a letter was sent home with the students directly involved. I even spoke directly with a few parents who had children in the classroom. This very unfortunate, isolated event was addressed and appeared to be resolved.  Today, our school was contacted by a local television station interested in doing a story on this matter. It appears the story will air sometime later today.

 

Although the Dearborn Public Schools cannot legally comment in public regarding a personnel matter, I can confidently assure all that the substitute who was in the classroom on that day will no longer be allowed to work in any Dearborn Public School.  

 

Our Technology Department is working with the company that provides our filtering software to ensure this type of incident does not occur again. There are 21,000 students in the Dearborn Public Schools and more than 2,600 staff members. This means there are millions of computer sessions in any given week. I provide this information not as an excuse for what occurred, but to provide context of the volume of traffic on our network each day. As fast as filtering software is updated and improved, there are those working just as fast at attempting to by-pass that software.

 

At Smith, we pride ourselves on creating a safe environment for your children. When an incident occurs that compromises that environment every effort will be put forth to restore the safety of our school. By working together we can ensure that our children will be safe when using the internet at school and at home.

 

Regards,

 

Principal Jebril

O.L.Smith Middle School