> Yes, but normally we punish people for intent and actual harm not for potential.

And this is the key to our disagreement. As a practicing teacher, for me, unauthorised access of my computer by a student is not a harmless prank. It is a serious action in its own right requiring serious consequences. It would not be characterised by any teacher that is sound of mind as a "harmless prank"

The subsequent actions are immaterial. The access itself is already a serious issue. As teachers part of what we do is to build communities of ethical participants. I should be able to momentarily leave my desk unattended without fear of a malicious student defacing my desktop with a pornographic image.

Let me make this very clear - it is the access itself that already makes this a serious issue, regardless of any potential harm that may or may not have been done in the process!

Of course as I have already stated many times:

1. Involving the police is an overreaction.

2. Treating it as a harmless prank is an underreaction

3. A reasonable middle ground should have been pursued by the school

> If you're a high school teacher you're going to have to have a ticker skin than that to let such stuff bother you.

This has nothing do do with having a thick skin.

> your 'reputation' is not going to be damaged one way or another by you putting up a picture on an overhead projector placed there by another person.

You are conflating personal reputation with professional reputation. Your professional reputation absolutely can be harmed, even by completely unsubstantiated accusations. This is true of all workplaces, not just schools.

> But your reputation will be determined by how you respond to it.

According to normal school policy this teacher acted exactly as they should by reporting this serious issue. By doing so they have preserved their professional reputation. Not reporting the issue would have been a breach of their contractual and ethical obligations.

> That computer came pretty close to not having access control either. Using the lastname of the teacher as a password does not count as 'access control' imo

This is a tangential issue. Yes the school should have had better password policies in place. "your password was insecure" is not a valid defense in respect to unauthorised computer use. If an adult tried the same in court they would be laughed out. And yes, this was not an adult, but as teachers part of our job is to educate our students about the real world. If we treat this issue as a "harmless prank" in school and then the young adult enters the real world after leaving school they will be surprised when a judge doesn't buy their classic "Harmless Prank" defense!

> It should be fairly obvious that the teacher did not put the image there to all present, that's the whole point of a prank. After all, it was found out who did it, wasn't it?

That's not how things work in the real world. If a teacher is found to have any inappropriate material tied to their school account an investigation would (and rightly so) be conducted. I'm speaking from experience here. Schools take this kind of thing very seriously. This is why we as teachers also take this kind of action very seriously. There is no such think as "haha just kidding buddy!! :)" in a school setting.

> The teachers career was not in any danger so you're still responding to what might have been, not what actually was.

This is naive. The intent of the student was clearly malicious. The teacher was lucky and dodged a bullet. You have no idea how quickly bad news travels in a high school. If even one or two students happened to catch sight of the image on the teacher's screen it would be the number one talking point across the school within hours. This would lead to an official administrative investigation within less than 24 hours! If the teacher didn't immediately report the issue it would without a doubt be viewed as the teacher having something to hide. This kind of issue can very quickly escalate in a school setting.