When a group of 6th graders started sitting up & taking notice of their teacher’s inappropriate behavior towards their female peers, they tried speaking up.
Unfortunately, no one was listening.
By the time they hit grade 7, the kids had had enough. Tired of adults not taking them seriously, eight male students decided to take matters into their own hands. The boys created a subchannel on Discord to track how their “creepy” teacher harassed girls in their class.
They called it the “Pedo Database.”
According to the Boston Globe, the group of Davisville Middle School boys in Rhode Island started the “pedo database” after witnessing their teacher “leering at some girls,” calling them “sweetheart” and “sunshine,” and asking them to dance for him.
They hoped it might come in useful one day. Turns out, that day is here.
The teacher is currently on administrative leave and under investigation for allegedly stalking a pre-teen girl while he was her coach.
As for the database? It is being used as evidence against him.
“The middle school boys thought their teacher was a ‘creep.’ So they tracked how he treated girls. A “pedo database” where some students documented how their teacher harassed girls in their class is now part of an investigation.” ?@BostonGlobe? https://t.co/7ap2FUW7WL
— Phyllis Fagell, LCPC (@Pfagell) September 10, 2022
Per the Boston Globe, “the teacher, who was also a coach and involved with extracurricular activities, told the students that he’d weathered parents’ complaints for nearly 30 years, and there was nothing anyone could do to him.”
Challenge accepted. (Also, never underestimate a 12-year-old.)
The boys created the log in January 2021 to keep a written record of the teacher’s “pedo moments and quotes.”
One of the first entries in the chat reads:
“This is now the official chat that we will later use as evidence against (the teacher) about pedophilia in case anything does come up in the future and we do turn out to be right.”
Based on the fact that the teacher is now under investigation, it sure seems they were right.
During Covid, while students were online, the participants were able to keep a real-time running inventory of the creepy soundbites, including:
“You all love me so choose love.”
“You gotta stand up and dance now.”
Everyone “in bathing suits tomorrow.”
Once they returned to in-person school, the boys jotted down notes to add to the channel later:
“Flirting with one girl. Teasing another. Calling the girls “sweetheart” and “sunshine.” Asking one girl to take off her shoes and try wiggling her toes without moving her pinkies.”
One of the boys involved told the Globe,
“I felt bad for [the girls] because sometimes it just seems like it was a humiliating thing. He’d play a song and he’d make one of them get up and dance.”
He went on to say that the girls would respond by either fake laughing or would just awkwardly sit there. Not only was it deeply uncomfortable for the girls targeted, but it was also uncomfortable for those watching.
Finally, in April of this year, the teacher’s inappropriate actions and words caught up to him.
He was escorted from the school and placed on leave.
An investigation was launched into allegations that “the teacher had stalked a pre-teen girl at the middle school while he was her coach, and had been inappropriate with other girls.”
The investigation is ongoing.
What makes this story even more disturbing is that the parents of the pre-teen girl alleged that they complained to multiple school officials about the coach’s “fixation and stalking” of their daughter for TWO years.
It wasn’t until they threatened to get a restraining order that the teacher was made to stop coaching at the school.
However, it didn’t end his coaching career.
Even after being accused of stalking, the teacher went on to coach in two other school districts, while continuing to teach at Davisville Middle School.
He was finally put on leave when the parents of the girl hired a lawyer.
One of the middle school boys told his mother about the “pedo database” after the public was asked to come forward with information.
It is now in the hands of hands of the US attorney’s Office, the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families, the state Department of Education, and the lawyer in charge of the school’s investigation.
The fact that these boys noticed that their female classmates were creeped out by the teacher is impressive. What’s even more impressive is that they did something about it. Even when adults – who SHOULD have done something – did not.
These girls should NEVER have been subjected to this kind of inappropriate behavior. But it’s heartening to know that when they were, their male peers were looking out for them.
It just goes to prove, middle school boys are alright.