East Falls teacher sues school after video-recording incident

East Falls teacher Harry Drake is suing Randolph Technical High School for wrongful termination after Drake’s videotaping disruptive students led to a tussle in the classroom.

The Philadelphia School District fired Drake in 2009, asserting that he did not have his teaching certification, according to the lawsuit filed by Drake.

 

Drake has also named the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers in the suit for not following through with his claim. It all started when Drake made good on his promise in 2009 to film the consistently ill-behaved students in his carpentry class.

Many in-school fights have been recorded and posted on the Internet, but this incident raises different issues: what are the rights of teachers and students when it comes to filming in the classroom?

“It’s really somewhat new and a little complicated,” David Kairys, a constitutional-law professor at Temple University, told the Inquirer. “It’s fairly common to use video for in-class kinds of things, and it doesn’t seem to raise a problem.”

Feed the Feed: Does Drake have a case?