A virtual high school class in Texas descended into chaos Tuesday after a participating student took pains to show his interest lay with the teacher rather than the subject.
The art class being held over Zoom for more than a dozen students at Thomas Edison High School in San Antonio became a study of the male torso after at least one freshman lifted up his shirt and made sexual gestures towards the female teacher leading the session.
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“They were pulling their shirts off and saying like really disgusting stuff to the teacher, making her feel uncomfortable,” junior Eduardo Corpus told KSAT.
A video of part of the class obtained by the station shows the unidentified student exposing his chest on camera and moving his body in a sexually suggestive way.
“Why you so sexy Ms,” one student is also heard saying on the recording.
The class comprised students from several grades, and Corpus said he didn’t know all of them, including the one who thought a view of his naked torso would liven up the lesson.
Corpus told the station that the image of the student’s unclothed antics will be hard to forget.
“I just don’t understand what goes through the kid’s head, you know?” he said. “Like, what? What are they thinking when they do that?”
Corpus’s mother said she was also angered and dismayed by her son’s report of what happened.
“I was furious,” Mariana Rodriguez told the channel. “I was so upset. And I know [Eduardo] was upset.”
The San Antonio Independent School District said in a statement it was “looking into” the disturbing incident and will take “appropriate disciplinary action.”
“Even with remote learning, we are following the SAISD student code of conduct, which has policies in place to promote and maintain a positive, safe and effective learning environment for students and adults,” the statement read.
Rodriguez said she sympathizes with teachers having to teach remotely with up to 30 students per class and four sessions a day. She believes fining parents for a child’s disruptive behavior may help prevent similar incidents.
“If they get fined for every single time that a child does these kind of things, believe me, their bill is going to be pretty high, and someone’s going to be parenting differently,” she said.