Monday, February 22, 2010

Auburn Adventist Academy Sex Scandal

A bit of excitement locally over the weekend. Bible teacher at AAA was allegedly fooling around with a 16 year old exchange student. See the Seattle PI article and comments. At least one former student posts there. If two students hold hands they get put on social restriction, but apparently unescorted visits to the teacher's place on the weekend doesn't get any attention from the other faculty. Nothing on the Auburn Website, but Scott Spies is no longer on the list of faculty.

5 comments:

perpetualstudent said...

It wasn't like that at UCA? I thought they were at least as up tight about things like that as Auburn. It looks like from the comments, the student graduated in 1997. I don't recognize the name, so I don't know if she was there when I was or not (1995 grad.) During the time I was there, one of the faculty/staff had to resign for allegedly having inappropriate contact. I don't think it was sexual, because he was never charged and most of what I know is rumors anyway.

Iron Soul said...

I'm sure UCA was at least as tight as AAA. I thought it was an unrealistic policy at the time, and as I've gained some experience I think even less of it. I think a realistic exposure to how the world actually works would protect kids from predators and their own hormones much better than what we were subjected to. [I was never really the ladies man, so I never actually ran afoul of the social regulations]

tkh said...

Didn't our junior-year religion teacher, Mr Hardy, do something like this while we were there? I forget what happened to him, though.

Iron Soul said...

Scott Spies pleads not guilty: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/416150_teacher03.html?source=mypi
"neighbors said they were puzzled by "weird" things they saw going on at his apartment - especially given his image as a nice, Christian guy"

Aaron Canwell said...

Iron Soul,

I think it is mainly because these academy's are caring for minors. And because of that there is a lot of pressure on the administration from the parents...parents of all hues...extremely conservative ("Don't let my little Johnny see any naked female ankles!) to quite liberal ("Hey, when we were in academy it was all about getting laid as much as possible!). So the academy has to stay within the bounds of the most conservative parent, otherwise the parent pulls the kid and the money.

I am not so excited about the idea of academy for my kids. To me the idea of giving your kids a "christian education" is very vague, and it misses the point. Perhaps a look at the programs offered should be the first way to choose where to send your kids.