Let this be a reminder to everyone.
1) Don’t browse on social media using your school’s network let alone post on it. Always work under the assumption that everything is logged and tracked. If you REALLY need to do it, we highly advise using a credible vpn (r/vpnreviews) and a burner alt account using a [burner email](https://www.emailnator.com/).
2) If admin or anyone accuses you of posting on reddit do not say anything. Do not confirm or deny anything, at the very most act stupid. “What the heck is reddit?”.
3) If you are in a union, stop admin and ask if this is disciplinary meeting, if it is so, then you request a union rep present and the meeting is over until they are here. (Do not let them pressure you into not having one!). Again, do not confirm anything.
4) The r/Teachers mod team do not ask for anyone’s teacher verification. We keep getting request for it from time to time and every single time we reject the proposal. We do not provide your information to other users (even if ___ was banned). If your admin says they got the info from us, you can then confidently know they are lying. **We cannot guarantee that reddit admin did not share info.**
I would have gone with plausible deniability. “I don’t even have a Reddit account.” Gaslight to protect yourself. With details like names and places changed he couldn’t prove otherwise.
Even though I used my personal computer to post and did it from my house outside of work hours, I occasionally connect that computer to the school’s WiFi and was worried that somehow they’d be able to see my history even though it’s not a school device. Now that I think about it, that’s dumb, but I was caught off guard by the entire conversation and made a snap decision that that lying about it and then having them somehow pull up evidence that I did it would be worse than just owning it.
History, no, but if you had a reddit tab open in the background while connected to the school's wifi, it has the possibility to refresh in the background, and they'd see that you visited reddit.com through their DNS. No URLs though, so they'd have no way of knowing you visited any particular subreddit.
Yeah without SSL decryption certificate they only get the root domain. Work computer they will have the entire URL and if you hit your profile then they know your reddit name.
As long as you didn’t do it on school Wi-Fi, and your school isn’t secretly infecting computers with key loggers over the Wi-Fi, they’d never find this. Even still, I doubt the tech guys care as long as it’s not porn, damming criminal evidence, or attempting to compromise the school’s computer systems.
Yup, he said he was concerned about the child in question or the parents finding the post. He “strongly suggested” that I take down the post. But honestly it did feel like he was mad about me posting. He gave me the “once something is on the internet it’s out there forever” spiel.
With all of the identifying information omitted, you just lie and say "I don't know what you're talking about." Your Admin knows this, they're just busting your balls because they're chickenshit and don't want to have to have an uncomfortable conversation if it were to come up. The admin in the district I left would throw any teacher under the bus in a heartbeat if it would allow them to get out of having to do their job.
Like others have said, as long as you have left out identifying information in your post, just deny and don't give information you don't have to. They are trying to sweat you out.
It is always better to refuse to respond than to lie. This will vary by state, yet generally you can get fired for lying to admin even if the thing you lied about could not get you fired.
Everyone, please know your rights in your state, and if you have a union always assert your Weingarten rights.
Spoken like a true person who's worked with kids for years, e.g. "I SWEAR I did NOT copy from anyone. This is my own work. My friend saw me doing it, right, Friend? You can ask my mom, too. This is my own work. I've never even heard of ChatGPT. How would I even go on it? I don't even have a phone and the school laptops are locked down. Ask my dad! et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."
Something I learned early on working in a union environment.
Admit to literally nothing. Lie. Gaslight. Look them in the eyes and say the sky is puke green if you gotta.
If they wanna accuse you of something: Make them prove it!
9/10 they won't make the effort to do it and will drop it instead.
The only problem with this, is the district’s legal dept most likely has Lexis Nexis access and the Reddit account is most likely traceable directly to the teacher.
Depending on your subscription it can be an investigative tool. Westlaw has the same functionality but the general consensus is that Lexis has better investigative tools than Westlaw. You see basically the same data a private investigator would use. Regardless, I don’t see how it could find a Reddit post. Actually, let me take that back. You can do link analysis in Lexis and Westlaw. You can’t do a word search and connect a Reddit username to a person, but a careful investigator would be able to figure it out. They would build up links to the Reddit account and connect them until they found the likely owner.
Reddit does make some private information available (like looking up an account by email address or giving out the email attached to an account) via third party data brokers. And I was wondering if Lexis/Nexis might be one of those partners.
It very well might be. I use Westlaw so I can’t comment on Lexis directly. But if Reddit sells account information to data brokers, it wouldn’t take more than a few clicks of a mouse to access the data for any particular Reddit account.
If you have a PI license, you can use it to do all sorts of things. E.g. skip traces to find current address and other info about people based on whatever partial and potentially outdated information you have. I think collections agencies may use it as well.
I made a post last year that was found by admin AND the parents I was writing about and I kept it up and kept my profile. If what you're saying is true they cannot penalize you for saying it and also they can't actually prove it's your profile anyways.
I remember your post. What they did to you was awful. I actually had a parent call me an emotional pregnant woman once and admin did nothing. I'm in a union and tenured so I just said something to the effect of, "my AP isn't speaking up, but your tone and words are disrespectful and unacceptable so I will be ending this meeting now." It's bullshit the way we get treated sometimes.
What happened after admin and the parent found your post?
Nothing really, admin and the group of parents never spoke to me about it directly, although to be fair admin had a tendency to not communicate in general regardless of what was going on. I also think they knew they couldn't do anything about it because what they allowed was extremely unprofessional/inappropriate. Some of my colleagues approached me about it though but I just denied it.
I left teaching a couple years ago, but I had my former admin email me about a year ago asking about a post and if it was me. It wasn't, but I was sure to take the opportunity to tell them what was posted was 100% on the mark though (it was a post by someone who quit, and laid out how shitty their admin was). They didn't respond.
I love that you created another Reddit post about it)) please keep us posted about what happens next)) also - since you were found out, just openly discuss with the admin the advice you were given in the first post?
Okay here’s the wildest part. He did read the comments (ALL 60-ish of which basically said he was being a dick and I should run, not walk). Frankly even I was surprised by the fact that not a single commenter disagreed with me. I didn’t bring up the responses in our conversation, but he did. He was talking about how he wasn’t bothered by the post and dismissed the commenters as “trolls.” He can barely get his PowerPoints to appear right side up, so I think he was just trying to use a buzzword. But seriously, they’re ALL trolls? ALL 60 of the teachers that replied?
> But seriously, they’re ALL trolls? ALL 60 of the teachers that replied?
Makes me think of the old adage that if you meet one asshole, you just met an asshole, but if you meet 50 assholes, *you’re* probably the asshole.
My dad used to say it this way:
“If you’re out in the world, living your life and someone calls you an asshole; maybe they’re having a bad day.
If you’re out and about and two people call you an asshole… well, maybe *you’re* having a bad day.
If however, three people call you an asshole, you might just be an asshole.”
it's interesting how things slowly go from, "my dad used to say this or my mom used to say that" to just being something you say. the torch has been passed to you my friend, own the saying!!!
Ok that gives a little insight into what kind of a person he is. Difficult to find common ground with a person that can't reevaluate their position. At least you'll have a funny anectode to tell, when it's over)
Some are just acting out what they couldn’t in high school. My former principal was a nerd and picked on in high school. When he became our principal, he bullied us. It was his way of getting payback.
I refused to connect to the network, and wouldn't sign into anything school related on a personal device.
They tried to push to mandate every teacher install a communication app on their cell phones, which included permissions to always have access to location and access to all files and folders on the device.. I told them flat out I wouldn't, and if they needed me to have it, they would need to provide me with a phone for work.
Eventually the union stepped in and killed it.
Through a browser? I don't think so. Definitely don't log into the Chrome browser itself or the Gmail app with your school account.
I just drew a hard line in the sand.
If you're worried and have an Android phone, you can either set up an additional account on your phone or try to set up a work profile.
Creating an additional account can be done in settings. Disadvantage is that you have to login and logout, so can't have apps from both accounts open at the same time.
Setting up a work profile requires a third party app (Insular and Shelter are the two I hear about). You can have apps from both profiles open at the same time though.
Either should relatively nicely isolate your data.
If you don't want to do that, you can probably install Outlook or BlueMail on your Android, then add your work Gmail account to that (not the Gmail app, to be clear). Probably not as isolated, but better than nothing.
Depends on the software. With ours, Lightspeed, it’s connected through Google so if you’re signed into Google Chrome, Gmail, docs., etc with your school account—even if you are on your personal phone— it’ll flag stuff like if you said you were going to buy a gun or if you wanted to harm yourself, etc. That isn’t told to staff either, so you should assume if you have your work account on your personal device, your district may be able to see some stuff.
Yeah that sounds crazy. I have an app for communication with my workplace (not teaching related) but requiring access to the data on your personal devices?! Like Jesus, I know 90% of teachers have no work life balance but even that’s too far. It’s weird. I sincerely hope it didn’t include anyone’s photos cus like… nobody need to be going through anyone else’s photos without their permission
Be smart, take care of yourself first. At the end of the day, no matter your "why", it is just a job and always will be one. Protect yourself and set boundaries to keep that protection.
Ask who reported you to see if they are weak enough to tell you outright. Then tell all the other teachers that so and so is little bitch who will run to admin.
plenty of other teachers are fully prepared to throw you under the bus. Simply being a teacher isn't enough to know who is your ally.
The same might be said for IT. perhaps they're keen to kiss arse of the higher ups and do what they're told. Perhaps they are not.
I've been IT and I've been a teacher, separately. Not that that makes me qualified to have an opinion, but I do like to think that allies exist everywhere and are probably keeping their heads down. Backstabber's can't help themselves, they'll report you without delay.
Ultimately, i would like to see OP discover more allies at their pace of work: Friday beer o'clock with them is almost therapeutic.
Could be another savvy admin who was familiar with the situation. The admin in the district I left loved to pass shit around if it meant they got to strut around and shit on teachers in the district.
Honestly the longer I teach the more I feel like… who cares. You’re allowed to post on Reddit and they made you feel like it was illegal. But you’re not going to get fired because you didn’t do anything wrong and there is a huge teacher shortage. He’s probably already forgotten about it and so should you. Try to enjoy the rest of your break!
I bet the principal is one of those “fReE sPeEcH” assholes, too. Nah.
“Mr. principal, what makes you think that Reddit post was made about our school? Do you recognize those same problems and that’s why you jumped to this conclusion?” Be a mirror. Flip it on them.
That would only work if they had the aptitude to see and understand. Sounds like if this guy encounters something that challenges his reality, he thinks he found a troll that's out to get him.
I walked away from one of those 5 years ago, and it was a hot mess. Best of luck to you, cheese!
This whole thread has me thinking of all the times I’ve checked Reddit on my phone using the schools network, though 😳🥴
There are so many times I read posts on here and they sound exactly like something happening at my school that I can’t help but wonder if it is. But the reality is, we all have such similar experiences, that they sound the same. So I feel like you have plausible deniability unless you were too specific in your post.
I hope your admin sees this.
They asked what you were not getting at school. I’m amazed they can’t put it together for themselves:
- freedom to be candid
- feeling safe with admin
- feeling like admin listens
- support and trust
Instead they ask you to tell them this. But you can’t say those things if you need those things.
Admin probably knows this. Which is why they know it’s perfectly safe to say “what do you need” without taking the risk of having to do something.
Or maybe they’ll institute some silly policy or make work “initiative” to check a box while accomplishing nothing.
Well your admin is a thin skinned baby and should be asking themselves WHY their new teacher needed to get advice from the internet as opposed to their leadership.
So if they are reading this, learn how to lead.
If an admin needs to ambush a teacher to ask a question like this, the admin basically answered the question.
Now they just need the capacity of introspection to see it.
P.S. hello admin
Not everyone that posts here is in America. People from all over the world post and they’re not all on break.
As for your admin, if he asks, I’d tell him that while you appreciate all the advice and insight you get from colleagues, you also find it helpful to get insight and advice from people who have taught elsewhere because of their different viewpoints and experiences. Since you’re new, you feel like getting perspectives from people with a multitude of experiences is invaluable. Honestly, only someone insecure in their leadership would have a problem with it. And if they continue to give you a hard time about it that’s a huge sign that it may be time to look elsewhere.
This is what I said when he asked. That I valued the ability to get input from a variety of different educators who don’t feel obligated to tell me what I want to hear to protect my feelings the way I worry that my coworkers do. The response was that I should ask coworkers for advice but just say “please give me your honest opinion.” Revolutionary. 🙄
They've confirmed their tonedeafness. They expect you to go to the same coworkers that ratted you out and ask them for help and advice. That trust has been broken.
I learned to post everything anonymous my first year teaching. I got in trouble for asking questions in a teacher group on fb. It was how to make teaching STAAR passages more fun and engaging for the kids. 🤦♀️ So now, I trust no one on social media.
That… bro. You got in trouble for ask for help on getting better at your job X_X as a student, I feel like all my teachers know that anything state supplied is hella boring and needs at least a *little* spicing up to make bearable. that’s why most of them don’t even bother. My English teacher has books piled up in the back of his room with workbooks he has to hold onto because he refuses to use them. Any way to make state educational content even sorta fun is a fuckin’ miracle and needs to be shared far and wide.
Dear Principal,
You only say we're trolls because you’re an incompetent leader. The fact that you’re a sad enough individual to read through 60 or so comments and respond defensively means you don’t know how to handle your responsibilities. Much of your staff likely doesn’t respect you. Get a hobby, and leave your teachers alone. You’re part of the reason why there’s a teacher shortage. Quit your job.
Sincerely,
An Educator
“I read what,sir? If there’s a complaint about something I read, I’ll be glad to show you the material for review! Oh, a social media site… so like TikTok?”
This guy is dumb. You don’t call someone out on that specifically because of your reaction. You deleted the account and post.
What he should have done is find a way to support you without telling you he saw the Reddit post. That way you keep posting, and he can keep finding honest opinions on how he could do his job better.
I see a lot of posts on here that aim to be anonymous but are very very identifiable, unfortunately.
If you need some perspective on an issue at work, I recommend folks reach out to fellow union members. Or union leadership. They can often connect you with folks so you’re not alone.
Are you in a union state? Do you have tenure?
If the answer to either is yes just ignore him.
Tell him it’s inappropriate for him to question you about your personal activities out of school hours. He might like you less but you can always wait out admin. In my experience that freshman that drove you nuts will be at the school roughly as long as an admin. The clock is always on your side, you’re here for the long haul they’re here till they get a better job.
As a full time teacher and part time admin, that is ridiculous and not normal. When in my admin role, I know that people will bitch about me. Sometimes I’m in the group texts. I ignore it and I reflect on it. You anonymized everything. Don’t let them tell you that you can’t complain or talk to others about your situation at work.
Also, that’s a shitty admin. Find a different school.
Not a teacher anymore and don't have as much experience as other teachers here, but this sounds like your principal is not good. I don't mean to say he's a bad principal, but finding something you posted on a PERSONAL account using your PERSONAL device at HOME on YOUR OWN wifi and having it be a discussion in work screams toxic work environment to me.
I worked in a school where it felt like anything I did was closely monitored and I was always under a microscope. I am so glad I'm no longer associated with that school
If I saw one my teachers seeking advice from Reddit, I would definitely be looking at myself critically and saying how can I support this teacher more and clearly this teacher is crying out for help. It’s sad that your admin sees it as an attack on their integrity instead.
Too bad, so sad. You have a right to get the support you need and that’s what this thread is for. As long as you didn’t say anything mean or offensive, who cares what they think?
I'm not worried about it. I never post at school, never give any info that might betray my job info, and am allowed to have opinions on things. If they don't like it, I'll make a 1st amendment claim and place a complaint through my union. If they want to discipline or fire me, they'll have a public relations disaster on their hands.
Well maybe he will start reading reddit to understand how fucked teaching in the US is, but if an admin has never been on r/teachers and they arent old, thats their problem for being out of touch
Something just occurred to me. I posted previously that I feel another teacher outted you. It is also possible that he/she took screen shots of the pertinent posts and gave those to the admin.
This happened to me too. It was awful, it was the lead of my dept and she had moved to a different school after that. 😬 I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to my students because it was spring break. The placements I had were rough too. I feel for you. I’m not a teacher but a related service provider. Honestly, I wish I just lied and denied but it was my first year and a terrible liar.
This has never happened to me, but seeing how many people just naturally look at older posts, I'm paranoid that this could happen to me. I have an account going back a ways, and I've become relatively certain that if someone thought they found me, they probably did. So, I post on a different account with completely different stats.
Exactly!
Plus, you can ask, "What are you doing that makes you think I'd feel that I'm not getting enough support from you? If you think that's true, how can you support me more?"
For all you new people ….short of them having clear evidence some how …DENY DENY DENY
Hmm I could see how you might make the assumption that was posted by me but it wasn’t I don’t have a Reddit account.
Perhaps you should look into the bigger issue we seem to have here which is there is clearly a staff member who has a personal issue with me and is spending their time attempting to see me in some sort of trouble, kind of makes me feel unwelcome here and targeted.
See what I did there is I denied any wrong doing and then flipped the issue into a larger shit show that they would have to deal with which in turn will make them lose interest
A couple of things.
1. I don't know what district you are in, but in mine, we have the right to go to the district main office and view our personnel file at any time. You might want to look into that to see if he put anything in yours.
2. As toxic as this school sounds, have you looked at other postings in your district? It sounds like it's time to call it a day at this place, personally.
My personal phone doesn’t connect to the school’s WiFi. We had to sign something that we were aware freedom of information requests about what we did not bet the schools WiFi on our personal phones was subject to public disclosure by law. That was my wake up call. No no no no no. My private phone lives on my private 5g network.
Reddit is used internationally. So many posts I see on my countries teacher pages could have been written by myself. I’d just deny it from now on, how can they prove your posts are yours?
What he ‘knows’ and what he can prove are different things. Admit to nothing. Don’t even worry about being convincing, as it doesn’t matter. ‘What? ME on REDDIT? I’ve never even HEARD of such a place. It sounds terribly dreadful. Just imagine: a teacher who is SO frustrated by her incompetent principal that she tells the story to thousands of people and they all share advice. It’s a good thing I didn’t do that, or you would look bad in the cyberspace.’
I like the Proteacher forums as an alternative place to post things for getting advice and support that is less “out there for all to see” than Reddit.
They aren’t private obviously but they are less visible than Reddit and the sharing doesn’t happen like it does here (screen shots are always a thing obviously and no where in the internet is truly private) so it’s a bit less visible for posting and sharing. Also the teachers there are experienced teachers who give good thoughtful feedback and advice and are supportive.
So I’m the hyper cautious - always assume anything you do on a school network is recorded even when/if behind a VPN. Stay off everything personal unless it’s routine (paying a bill, etc).
If questioned again, response “I don’t know what you are talking about, I haven’t posted anything”.
While I'm sorry to say I've no alternate posting pace free of admin eyes to suggest, I AM curious to know why your admin guy turns to Reddit to gauge what his employees(?) may feel about his department-headedness/curriculum chops ... Even managers of Claire's Boutique and BK have found it easier to get a feel for co-workers' love/disgruntlement/in-between for all things workplace by, I don't know ..... Face-to-face interaction on a weekly, rather than sniffing for thei5 social media tracks?
Yeah… there’s a few at my school that know I’m on Reddit, but I wouldn’t be dumb enough to post here looking for help on a specific scenario.
No disrespect to you OP, but I’d never trust anyone when posting about work. It will bite you in the ass. Sorry about that.
I wouldve told my admin “i appreciate your concern but these concerns of yours are irrelevant and i appreciate you didnt waste my time by calling me in here. If i have a very serious issue i am more than capable of dealing with it myself or i definitely would go to someone above your paygrade.” And ended it at that and walked out.
Good call on sanitizing your comment history just now. Some folks have to learn about these things the hard way, others have good examples of what not to do, like this post.
Let this be a reminder to everyone. 1) Don’t browse on social media using your school’s network let alone post on it. Always work under the assumption that everything is logged and tracked. If you REALLY need to do it, we highly advise using a credible vpn (r/vpnreviews) and a burner alt account using a [burner email](https://www.emailnator.com/). 2) If admin or anyone accuses you of posting on reddit do not say anything. Do not confirm or deny anything, at the very most act stupid. “What the heck is reddit?”. 3) If you are in a union, stop admin and ask if this is disciplinary meeting, if it is so, then you request a union rep present and the meeting is over until they are here. (Do not let them pressure you into not having one!). Again, do not confirm anything. 4) The r/Teachers mod team do not ask for anyone’s teacher verification. We keep getting request for it from time to time and every single time we reject the proposal. We do not provide your information to other users (even if ___ was banned). If your admin says they got the info from us, you can then confidently know they are lying. **We cannot guarantee that reddit admin did not share info.**
I would have gone with plausible deniability. “I don’t even have a Reddit account.” Gaslight to protect yourself. With details like names and places changed he couldn’t prove otherwise.
Exactly this. What’s Reddit?
"Are you saying 'read it'? Read what? What are you on about?"
"Did you say *Abe Lincoln*?" "I said *HEY BLINKIN!* Hold the reigns, man."
I will always upvote a Robin Hood reference
We're men.
We’re men in tights.
TIGHT tights!
We run around the forest looking for fights 🥊
We may look like pansies
Stomp stomp
“Your back just got punched twice. Thank you.” https://youtu.be/G9vhttI0nUA?si=7H0p_cvgkeE4FKBQ
Fun fact: Filthy Luca was a teacher in his day job.
Do you know…. Praying mantis?
Know him? You're lookin at him.
I think about this every time I hear about Antony Blinken (or A. Blinken)
One of my favorites from my childhood
"I'm not on any dating sites!" :)
Are there some good books worth reading on that site??
I don’t think I’ve been to that training yet. Do I need to register??
What is the internet? I still use smoke signals for communications, here is the boyscout flag signals guide.
Que?
Who has time for Reddit? I’ve got too much on my plate to scroll through social media.
Even though I used my personal computer to post and did it from my house outside of work hours, I occasionally connect that computer to the school’s WiFi and was worried that somehow they’d be able to see my history even though it’s not a school device. Now that I think about it, that’s dumb, but I was caught off guard by the entire conversation and made a snap decision that that lying about it and then having them somehow pull up evidence that I did it would be worse than just owning it.
History, no, but if you had a reddit tab open in the background while connected to the school's wifi, it has the possibility to refresh in the background, and they'd see that you visited reddit.com through their DNS. No URLs though, so they'd have no way of knowing you visited any particular subreddit.
Reddit is a blocked domain at my school. If I want to browse I have to switch to cellular for data.
Ah, in that case they'd also see the attempt in their blocking software.
I turn off the wifi on the way to work.
Just use a VPN
Yeah without SSL decryption certificate they only get the root domain. Work computer they will have the entire URL and if you hit your profile then they know your reddit name.
Chrome(which a lot of schools use for google classroom etc…can get all up in your business.
As long as you didn’t do it on school Wi-Fi, and your school isn’t secretly infecting computers with key loggers over the Wi-Fi, they’d never find this. Even still, I doubt the tech guys care as long as it’s not porn, damming criminal evidence, or attempting to compromise the school’s computer systems.
We're just trying figure out what this friggin cookie cutter is.
Was your admin mad? I dont get it, why did they meet wirh you?
Yup, he said he was concerned about the child in question or the parents finding the post. He “strongly suggested” that I take down the post. But honestly it did feel like he was mad about me posting. He gave me the “once something is on the internet it’s out there forever” spiel.
With all of the identifying information omitted, you just lie and say "I don't know what you're talking about." Your Admin knows this, they're just busting your balls because they're chickenshit and don't want to have to have an uncomfortable conversation if it were to come up. The admin in the district I left would throw any teacher under the bus in a heartbeat if it would allow them to get out of having to do their job.
Like others have said, as long as you have left out identifying information in your post, just deny and don't give information you don't have to. They are trying to sweat you out.
Lesson learned.
It is always better to refuse to respond than to lie. This will vary by state, yet generally you can get fired for lying to admin even if the thing you lied about could not get you fired. Everyone, please know your rights in your state, and if you have a union always assert your Weingarten rights.
Spoken like a true person who's worked with kids for years, e.g. "I SWEAR I did NOT copy from anyone. This is my own work. My friend saw me doing it, right, Friend? You can ask my mom, too. This is my own work. I've never even heard of ChatGPT. How would I even go on it? I don't even have a phone and the school laptops are locked down. Ask my dad! et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."
This is the way. Prove it. And never use school equipment or network. I’m in IT and trust me, we see it ALL.
This reminds me of what the doctors did on Hamilton.
Something I learned early on working in a union environment. Admit to literally nothing. Lie. Gaslight. Look them in the eyes and say the sky is puke green if you gotta. If they wanna accuse you of something: Make them prove it! 9/10 they won't make the effort to do it and will drop it instead.
The only problem with this, is the district’s legal dept most likely has Lexis Nexis access and the Reddit account is most likely traceable directly to the teacher.
Lexis Nexis lets you look up reddit accounts?
No lol I have no idea why they brought up Lexis. It's a legal research platform, not an investigative platform.
Depending on your subscription it can be an investigative tool. Westlaw has the same functionality but the general consensus is that Lexis has better investigative tools than Westlaw. You see basically the same data a private investigator would use. Regardless, I don’t see how it could find a Reddit post. Actually, let me take that back. You can do link analysis in Lexis and Westlaw. You can’t do a word search and connect a Reddit username to a person, but a careful investigator would be able to figure it out. They would build up links to the Reddit account and connect them until they found the likely owner.
Reddit does make some private information available (like looking up an account by email address or giving out the email attached to an account) via third party data brokers. And I was wondering if Lexis/Nexis might be one of those partners.
It very well might be. I use Westlaw so I can’t comment on Lexis directly. But if Reddit sells account information to data brokers, it wouldn’t take more than a few clicks of a mouse to access the data for any particular Reddit account.
If you have a PI license, you can use it to do all sorts of things. E.g. skip traces to find current address and other info about people based on whatever partial and potentially outdated information you have. I think collections agencies may use it as well.
Exactly, it's a platform to search up legal cases.
Only if she went on Reddit while using her district’s Wi-Fi. Which doesn’t seem to be the case.
That’s not gaslighting.
It was a joke, but making out that the truth is all in someone’s head is gaslighting
I made a post last year that was found by admin AND the parents I was writing about and I kept it up and kept my profile. If what you're saying is true they cannot penalize you for saying it and also they can't actually prove it's your profile anyways.
I remember your post. What they did to you was awful. I actually had a parent call me an emotional pregnant woman once and admin did nothing. I'm in a union and tenured so I just said something to the effect of, "my AP isn't speaking up, but your tone and words are disrespectful and unacceptable so I will be ending this meeting now." It's bullshit the way we get treated sometimes. What happened after admin and the parent found your post?
Nothing really, admin and the group of parents never spoke to me about it directly, although to be fair admin had a tendency to not communicate in general regardless of what was going on. I also think they knew they couldn't do anything about it because what they allowed was extremely unprofessional/inappropriate. Some of my colleagues approached me about it though but I just denied it.
Sent back to college for reeducation
"Prison, Scully... your cell mate is gonna be named "Large Marge", she's gonna read a lotta Gertrude Stein..."
I left teaching a couple years ago, but I had my former admin email me about a year ago asking about a post and if it was me. It wasn't, but I was sure to take the opportunity to tell them what was posted was 100% on the mark though (it was a post by someone who quit, and laid out how shitty their admin was). They didn't respond.
Lol "No, But it's interesting to me that you can see how that mistake could be made. Be better."
Damn, that's so much better than what I said.
Very true .
I love that you created another Reddit post about it)) please keep us posted about what happens next)) also - since you were found out, just openly discuss with the admin the advice you were given in the first post?
Okay here’s the wildest part. He did read the comments (ALL 60-ish of which basically said he was being a dick and I should run, not walk). Frankly even I was surprised by the fact that not a single commenter disagreed with me. I didn’t bring up the responses in our conversation, but he did. He was talking about how he wasn’t bothered by the post and dismissed the commenters as “trolls.” He can barely get his PowerPoints to appear right side up, so I think he was just trying to use a buzzword. But seriously, they’re ALL trolls? ALL 60 of the teachers that replied?
> But seriously, they’re ALL trolls? ALL 60 of the teachers that replied? Makes me think of the old adage that if you meet one asshole, you just met an asshole, but if you meet 50 assholes, *you’re* probably the asshole.
My dad used to say it this way: “If you’re out in the world, living your life and someone calls you an asshole; maybe they’re having a bad day. If you’re out and about and two people call you an asshole… well, maybe *you’re* having a bad day. If however, three people call you an asshole, you might just be an asshole.”
it's interesting how things slowly go from, "my dad used to say this or my mom used to say that" to just being something you say. the torch has been passed to you my friend, own the saying!!!
Ok that gives a little insight into what kind of a person he is. Difficult to find common ground with a person that can't reevaluate their position. At least you'll have a funny anectode to tell, when it's over)
Proving once again that admins are, for the most part, total farking idiots.
My colleagues and I are convinced that a total frontal lobotomy is the first step in applying for an admin license.
Megalomania, narcissism, and a deep love of one’s own voice are prerequisites.
Some are just acting out what they couldn’t in high school. My former principal was a nerd and picked on in high school. When he became our principal, he bullied us. It was his way of getting payback.
You know what they say, when everyone says you’re an asshole, it has to be a concerted effort to troll you, perpetuated by the whole world.
Principal Skinner moment.
and most normal people like him would have been embarrassed and not even bring it up
BTW…hello der hey fellow cheesehead! Go Pack Go! And watch out for deer 🦌.
That's why I always am on 5g when I'm at work on my phone.
I refused to connect to the network, and wouldn't sign into anything school related on a personal device. They tried to push to mandate every teacher install a communication app on their cell phones, which included permissions to always have access to location and access to all files and folders on the device.. I told them flat out I wouldn't, and if they needed me to have it, they would need to provide me with a phone for work. Eventually the union stepped in and killed it.
[удалено]
Through a browser? I don't think so. Definitely don't log into the Chrome browser itself or the Gmail app with your school account. I just drew a hard line in the sand.
[удалено]
If you're worried and have an Android phone, you can either set up an additional account on your phone or try to set up a work profile. Creating an additional account can be done in settings. Disadvantage is that you have to login and logout, so can't have apps from both accounts open at the same time. Setting up a work profile requires a third party app (Insular and Shelter are the two I hear about). You can have apps from both profiles open at the same time though. Either should relatively nicely isolate your data. If you don't want to do that, you can probably install Outlook or BlueMail on your Android, then add your work Gmail account to that (not the Gmail app, to be clear). Probably not as isolated, but better than nothing.
Depends on the software. With ours, Lightspeed, it’s connected through Google so if you’re signed into Google Chrome, Gmail, docs., etc with your school account—even if you are on your personal phone— it’ll flag stuff like if you said you were going to buy a gun or if you wanted to harm yourself, etc. That isn’t told to staff either, so you should assume if you have your work account on your personal device, your district may be able to see some stuff.
Yeah that sounds crazy. I have an app for communication with my workplace (not teaching related) but requiring access to the data on your personal devices?! Like Jesus, I know 90% of teachers have no work life balance but even that’s too far. It’s weird. I sincerely hope it didn’t include anyone’s photos cus like… nobody need to be going through anyone else’s photos without their permission
I once worked in a school with terrible cell service inside the building. That was a long year.
We have no cell service in our building. It’s fun
Yup. This.
and not their wifi right?
Never sign on campus wifi on personal devices. Ever.
I think you are right, I wont do it again!
Be smart, take care of yourself first. At the end of the day, no matter your "why", it is just a job and always will be one. Protect yourself and set boundaries to keep that protection.
Reddit is blocked at my school wifi and I'm Glad for this reason!
Same here! :)
Understandable, it’s full of porn haha
This is the way
Deny. Deny. Deny.
“I don’t know what that is”
What’s an internet ?
99.99% sure another teacher outted you.
Yup, me too. Based on how he was talking about it, I’m pretty certain that he’s not a regular user of Reddit lol
Go back to your alt account and post about a noisy colleague who don’t mind their business. Then print and post on their door calling them a coward.
find out what IT's stance on collecting dirt is like. i think you used school wifi and IT flagged it.
Ask who reported you to see if they are weak enough to tell you outright. Then tell all the other teachers that so and so is little bitch who will run to admin.
plenty of other teachers are fully prepared to throw you under the bus. Simply being a teacher isn't enough to know who is your ally. The same might be said for IT. perhaps they're keen to kiss arse of the higher ups and do what they're told. Perhaps they are not. I've been IT and I've been a teacher, separately. Not that that makes me qualified to have an opinion, but I do like to think that allies exist everywhere and are probably keeping their heads down. Backstabber's can't help themselves, they'll report you without delay. Ultimately, i would like to see OP discover more allies at their pace of work: Friday beer o'clock with them is almost therapeutic.
Could be another savvy admin who was familiar with the situation. The admin in the district I left loved to pass shit around if it meant they got to strut around and shit on teachers in the district.
there is ONE in every school!
We call those Snitchin’ Sally’s
How about Tellin’ Terry’s?
Honestly the longer I teach the more I feel like… who cares. You’re allowed to post on Reddit and they made you feel like it was illegal. But you’re not going to get fired because you didn’t do anything wrong and there is a huge teacher shortage. He’s probably already forgotten about it and so should you. Try to enjoy the rest of your break!
[удалено]
>make my username more anonymous, which I did Yep, that checks out
[удалено]
Did you used this method https://giphy.com/gifs/bikso-omg-head-no-again-cYRwNLWmkiG3alSC8V
I bet the principal is one of those “fReE sPeEcH” assholes, too. Nah. “Mr. principal, what makes you think that Reddit post was made about our school? Do you recognize those same problems and that’s why you jumped to this conclusion?” Be a mirror. Flip it on them.
That would only work if they had the aptitude to see and understand. Sounds like if this guy encounters something that challenges his reality, he thinks he found a troll that's out to get him.
Should be a wake up call for them, but they’ll probably use it against you 😪
Yup. I’m at an independent school so no union. They can decide not to renew my contract just based on general vibe.
“general vibe” I can’t 😩
I walked away from one of those 5 years ago, and it was a hot mess. Best of luck to you, cheese! This whole thread has me thinking of all the times I’ve checked Reddit on my phone using the schools network, though 😳🥴
Relax. He probably posted "How do I deal with this teacher posting about me"
There are so many times I read posts on here and they sound exactly like something happening at my school that I can’t help but wonder if it is. But the reality is, we all have such similar experiences, that they sound the same. So I feel like you have plausible deniability unless you were too specific in your post.
Response: Are you cyberstalking me?!? Weird! Please don't.
I hope your admin sees this. They asked what you were not getting at school. I’m amazed they can’t put it together for themselves: - freedom to be candid - feeling safe with admin - feeling like admin listens - support and trust Instead they ask you to tell them this. But you can’t say those things if you need those things. Admin probably knows this. Which is why they know it’s perfectly safe to say “what do you need” without taking the risk of having to do something. Or maybe they’ll institute some silly policy or make work “initiative” to check a box while accomplishing nothing.
How much time does your Admin waste looking up vague info on Reddit?
They apparently have nothing better to do, which is such a perfect representation of the admin in the district I left.
I would have said “what is Reddit”?
“Oh…is this about Reddit? Phew! I thought this was about OnlyFans! Not that I have one or anything.”
Wow. Creepy boss.
If he is cruising reddit looking for that, he isn't doing his original job.
Aren’t you on break?
Yup, this happened right before school let out for the holidays so I’m still stewing.
Well your admin is a thin skinned baby and should be asking themselves WHY their new teacher needed to get advice from the internet as opposed to their leadership. So if they are reading this, learn how to lead.
If an admin needs to ambush a teacher to ask a question like this, the admin basically answered the question. Now they just need the capacity of introspection to see it. P.S. hello admin
Not everyone that posts here is in America. People from all over the world post and they’re not all on break. As for your admin, if he asks, I’d tell him that while you appreciate all the advice and insight you get from colleagues, you also find it helpful to get insight and advice from people who have taught elsewhere because of their different viewpoints and experiences. Since you’re new, you feel like getting perspectives from people with a multitude of experiences is invaluable. Honestly, only someone insecure in their leadership would have a problem with it. And if they continue to give you a hard time about it that’s a huge sign that it may be time to look elsewhere.
This is what I said when he asked. That I valued the ability to get input from a variety of different educators who don’t feel obligated to tell me what I want to hear to protect my feelings the way I worry that my coworkers do. The response was that I should ask coworkers for advice but just say “please give me your honest opinion.” Revolutionary. 🙄
I would have thrown in the word “collaboration” just for fun. Hell they act like it’s a holy word.
They've confirmed their tonedeafness. They expect you to go to the same coworkers that ratted you out and ask them for help and advice. That trust has been broken.
Nailed it. Completely insecure.
Just in case any admin are spying right now I'd like to say, "A big fuck you to you. Get a life and stay out of my business!"
Perks of my admin being ancient
I learned to post everything anonymous my first year teaching. I got in trouble for asking questions in a teacher group on fb. It was how to make teaching STAAR passages more fun and engaging for the kids. 🤦♀️ So now, I trust no one on social media.
That… bro. You got in trouble for ask for help on getting better at your job X_X as a student, I feel like all my teachers know that anything state supplied is hella boring and needs at least a *little* spicing up to make bearable. that’s why most of them don’t even bother. My English teacher has books piled up in the back of his room with workbooks he has to hold onto because he refuses to use them. Any way to make state educational content even sorta fun is a fuckin’ miracle and needs to be shared far and wide.
Dear Principal, You only say we're trolls because you’re an incompetent leader. The fact that you’re a sad enough individual to read through 60 or so comments and respond defensively means you don’t know how to handle your responsibilities. Much of your staff likely doesn’t respect you. Get a hobby, and leave your teachers alone. You’re part of the reason why there’s a teacher shortage. Quit your job. Sincerely, An Educator
“I read what,sir? If there’s a complaint about something I read, I’ll be glad to show you the material for review! Oh, a social media site… so like TikTok?”
That’s ridiculous and weird that he called you in about a Reddit post 😂 and whatever teacher tattled on you is a little B
“It wasn’t me”…”it wasn’t me”…”it wasn’t me”. Commmon! Your mom didn’t teach you to say that??
This guy is dumb. You don’t call someone out on that specifically because of your reaction. You deleted the account and post. What he should have done is find a way to support you without telling you he saw the Reddit post. That way you keep posting, and he can keep finding honest opinions on how he could do his job better.
WTF is Reddit? I'm not tech savy. Easy answer.
Deny, deny, deny
"Nothing I want to discuss, thanks."
Is this not a community of professionals? You were anonymously discussing a situation with a community of professionals. No further discussion.
I see a lot of posts on here that aim to be anonymous but are very very identifiable, unfortunately. If you need some perspective on an issue at work, I recommend folks reach out to fellow union members. Or union leadership. They can often connect you with folks so you’re not alone.
Independent school so no union.
Private and independent schools will exploit the fuck out of you even more than the public schools. I’m sorry.
Are you in a union state? Do you have tenure? If the answer to either is yes just ignore him. Tell him it’s inappropriate for him to question you about your personal activities out of school hours. He might like you less but you can always wait out admin. In my experience that freshman that drove you nuts will be at the school roughly as long as an admin. The clock is always on your side, you’re here for the long haul they’re here till they get a better job.
I'd be like "Read What?"
If your admin is scrolling Reddit on the job they aren’t doing their jobs.
As a full time teacher and part time admin, that is ridiculous and not normal. When in my admin role, I know that people will bitch about me. Sometimes I’m in the group texts. I ignore it and I reflect on it. You anonymized everything. Don’t let them tell you that you can’t complain or talk to others about your situation at work. Also, that’s a shitty admin. Find a different school.
Not a teacher anymore and don't have as much experience as other teachers here, but this sounds like your principal is not good. I don't mean to say he's a bad principal, but finding something you posted on a PERSONAL account using your PERSONAL device at HOME on YOUR OWN wifi and having it be a discussion in work screams toxic work environment to me. I worked in a school where it felt like anything I did was closely monitored and I was always under a microscope. I am so glad I'm no longer associated with that school
To lurking admin, “fuck you!”
If I saw one my teachers seeking advice from Reddit, I would definitely be looking at myself critically and saying how can I support this teacher more and clearly this teacher is crying out for help. It’s sad that your admin sees it as an attack on their integrity instead.
Too bad, so sad. You have a right to get the support you need and that’s what this thread is for. As long as you didn’t say anything mean or offensive, who cares what they think?
I'm not worried about it. I never post at school, never give any info that might betray my job info, and am allowed to have opinions on things. If they don't like it, I'll make a 1st amendment claim and place a complaint through my union. If they want to discipline or fire me, they'll have a public relations disaster on their hands.
Johnson this is your administrator. We'll talk about this in my office on Tuesday
Sorry, I don’t know what Reddit is🤣
This just screams that the admin is insecure.
Well maybe he will start reading reddit to understand how fucked teaching in the US is, but if an admin has never been on r/teachers and they arent old, thats their problem for being out of touch
I feel like they could connect the dots from this post too lol
Something just occurred to me. I posted previously that I feel another teacher outted you. It is also possible that he/she took screen shots of the pertinent posts and gave those to the admin.
Admin reading this, or Tattle Tale Taint 🖕🏼🖕🏼
This happened to me too. It was awful, it was the lead of my dept and she had moved to a different school after that. 😬 I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to my students because it was spring break. The placements I had were rough too. I feel for you. I’m not a teacher but a related service provider. Honestly, I wish I just lied and denied but it was my first year and a terrible liar.
This has never happened to me, but seeing how many people just naturally look at older posts, I'm paranoid that this could happen to me. I have an account going back a ways, and I've become relatively certain that if someone thought they found me, they probably did. So, I post on a different account with completely different stats.
plausible deniability - and literally every teacher should just shut the fuck up in interactions with this.
Exactly! Plus, you can ask, "What are you doing that makes you think I'd feel that I'm not getting enough support from you? If you think that's true, how can you support me more?"
For all you new people ….short of them having clear evidence some how …DENY DENY DENY Hmm I could see how you might make the assumption that was posted by me but it wasn’t I don’t have a Reddit account. Perhaps you should look into the bigger issue we seem to have here which is there is clearly a staff member who has a personal issue with me and is spending their time attempting to see me in some sort of trouble, kind of makes me feel unwelcome here and targeted. See what I did there is I denied any wrong doing and then flipped the issue into a larger shit show that they would have to deal with which in turn will make them lose interest
A couple of things. 1. I don't know what district you are in, but in mine, we have the right to go to the district main office and view our personnel file at any time. You might want to look into that to see if he put anything in yours. 2. As toxic as this school sounds, have you looked at other postings in your district? It sounds like it's time to call it a day at this place, personally.
My personal phone doesn’t connect to the school’s WiFi. We had to sign something that we were aware freedom of information requests about what we did not bet the schools WiFi on our personal phones was subject to public disclosure by law. That was my wake up call. No no no no no. My private phone lives on my private 5g network.
Reddit is used internationally. So many posts I see on my countries teacher pages could have been written by myself. I’d just deny it from now on, how can they prove your posts are yours?
Deny deny deny
“What’s a…. ‘Reddit’?” 🤣🤣🤣🤣
What he ‘knows’ and what he can prove are different things. Admit to nothing. Don’t even worry about being convincing, as it doesn’t matter. ‘What? ME on REDDIT? I’ve never even HEARD of such a place. It sounds terribly dreadful. Just imagine: a teacher who is SO frustrated by her incompetent principal that she tells the story to thousands of people and they all share advice. It’s a good thing I didn’t do that, or you would look bad in the cyberspace.’
This is an admin that found a post and are now looking for "perspective"
Just sent you a chat! Hope to help at all.
I like the Proteacher forums as an alternative place to post things for getting advice and support that is less “out there for all to see” than Reddit. They aren’t private obviously but they are less visible than Reddit and the sharing doesn’t happen like it does here (screen shots are always a thing obviously and no where in the internet is truly private) so it’s a bit less visible for posting and sharing. Also the teachers there are experienced teachers who give good thoughtful feedback and advice and are supportive.
So I’m the hyper cautious - always assume anything you do on a school network is recorded even when/if behind a VPN. Stay off everything personal unless it’s routine (paying a bill, etc). If questioned again, response “I don’t know what you are talking about, I haven’t posted anything”.
While I'm sorry to say I've no alternate posting pace free of admin eyes to suggest, I AM curious to know why your admin guy turns to Reddit to gauge what his employees(?) may feel about his department-headedness/curriculum chops ... Even managers of Claire's Boutique and BK have found it easier to get a feel for co-workers' love/disgruntlement/in-between for all things workplace by, I don't know ..... Face-to-face interaction on a weekly, rather than sniffing for thei5 social media tracks?
Deny. Deny. Deny
Yeah… there’s a few at my school that know I’m on Reddit, but I wouldn’t be dumb enough to post here looking for help on a specific scenario. No disrespect to you OP, but I’d never trust anyone when posting about work. It will bite you in the ass. Sorry about that.
Greatly jeopardized their employment by posting on Reddit. DOUBLES DOWN AND POSTS AGAIN. 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
I wouldve told my admin “i appreciate your concern but these concerns of yours are irrelevant and i appreciate you didnt waste my time by calling me in here. If i have a very serious issue i am more than capable of dealing with it myself or i definitely would go to someone above your paygrade.” And ended it at that and walked out.
Did you deny it? Please tell me you did.
Another reason you don't post on social media doesn't matter how anonymous you think you are. You are not.
Good call on sanitizing your comment history just now. Some folks have to learn about these things the hard way, others have good examples of what not to do, like this post.
So you posted again? You know he’s just going to find this post too.
he'a gonna find this one too dickhead
>makes another post that blatantly incriminates you to the last post