ROSS COUNTY, Ohio — A teacher at Paint Valley High School in Ross County is under investigation after allegedly sending a nude selfie-photograph to a student. The Ross County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that detectives were called to the school in Bainbridge this week to address the alleged incident.
According to Principal Joel Holbert, the school had been looking into the allegations against the teacher. The teacher’s name has been withheld by the sheriff’s office. However, Holbert told law enforcement that the teacher was escorted off the school premises. It is unclear if the teacher was terminated or is on leave pending the outcome of an investigation; calls to the school district seeking comment for this story were not immediately returned.
The incident came to light when a male student reported being “tapped” on the social networking app “Grindr” by another user. The two engaged in a private chat, exchanging approximately 12 messages over an hour. The conversation began casually until the other user — alleged to be the teacher — asked the student if they wanted to “swap.” (That’s slang for trading nude photographs). At that point, the other user sent an unsolicited nude selfie, the sheriff’s office reports.
The students recognized the person in the photo as their teacher and shared it with a friend, who used their cell phone camera to capture the photo.
The investigation remains ongoing.
It is unclear the age of the student, however, the case is being investigated as pandering to a minor. In Ohio, a minor is someone under the age of 18. Grindr’s terms of service require that a user be at least 18 years of age.
This is the second time a southern Ohio teacher is in hot water this week with law enforcement for allegedly sending nude photos to students. You may recall the Guardian reported earlier this week that a Scioto Valley band director was on leave for uploading a video of his genitals to a Snapchat account where he had befriended students.