Teacher Bullying Middle School Student, Calling Them a 'Villain' and Excluding Them from Group Chat...

A private middle school teacher in Gangdong-gu, Seoul, has been reported to the police on charges of encouraging bullying and making sexually harassing remarks by referring to students he taught as 'villains' in a group chat, prompting a police investigation.

The Gangdong Police Station in Seoul announced on the 16th that they have booked a teacher in his 40s, Mr. A, on charges including violation of the Child Welfare Act (emotional abuse) and are currently investigating. Mr. A, an English teacher at a middle school in Gangdong-gu, is suspected of emotionally abusing three students in the same class, including a 15-year-old boy, B, from July last year to early this year.

[Photo by Yonhap News]

In a group KakaoTalk chatroom where his students gathered, Mr. A referred to three students, including B, as 'villains' and 'Triple X' (a term referring to the three students), effectively labeling them as problematic students within the school. He also left messages such as "Concept runaway? lol" and "Should I tell your parents that I call you Triple X? So scaryㅠ".

Additionally, he created a separate group chat excluding B and posted class announcements there. He also threatened the other two students that if they shared KakaoTalk messages or phone call contents with their parents, they would be excluded.

Furthermore, Mr. A reportedly made sexually harassing remarks in the group chat. He said things like, "Next year, naked unnyas might come to the festival" (referring to female students from other schools performing), "Even if they're naked, unnyas should have certain big parts to be liked," and "I heard your ideal type is unnyas with small faces and big breasts?"

B’s parents first noticed the problem in July last year when they felt that the content of their child's phone calls with teacher A was abnormal.

B’s parents said, "At first, we thought the teacher was scolding him for not handing over his phone, so we apologized deeply. But after listening to him talk on the phone for three hours over three consecutive days about the same issue, hearing things like 'Kids like you need to be beaten. You need to go to the police station to come to your senses,' and then learning that our son was being ostracized at school (centered around the teacher), we were shocked."

Later, B’s parents met with teacher A, received an apology regarding this matter, and did not raise further issues. However, in May this year, after hearing from the parents of the other two victims that teacher A’s bullying continued and that group ostracism was still being encouraged even after apologizing to B last year, they checked the contents of the group chat.

Judging the situation to be serious, the parents filed a complaint with the police on the 5th, accusing Mr. A of child abuse.

When parents pointed out the teacher’s behavior of sowing discord among the children during a meeting, Mr. A responded that it was his 'own educational method.' It is known that he went on a six-month leave of absence on the 30th of last month, citing depression.

The school refrained from commenting on whether a disciplinary committee would be held, stating, "The police investigation is ongoing."

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education explained, "Since the police investigation has begun, we are monitoring the situation," and added, "The decision to hold a disciplinary committee will be made based on the investigation results." However, disciplinary actions for teachers at private middle schools are not under the jurisdiction of the education office but fall under the school corporation.

In 2019, the government approved an amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Private School Act, strengthening disciplinary regulations for private school teachers. The amendment stipulates that if the appointing authority of a private school teacher does not comply with dismissal or disciplinary requests from the competent education office without special reasons, fines of 3 million KRW for the first violation, 6 million KRW for the second, and 10 million KRW for three or more violations will be imposed. Also, for sexual harassment and other sex-related misconduct, the disciplinary process must be completed within 30 days from the date the disciplinary request is received.

Meanwhile, Article 17 of the Child Welfare Act prohibits anyone from committing sexual abuse (No. 2), physical abuse (No. 3), emotional abuse (No. 5), abandonment, and neglect (No. 6) against children. In particular, those who commit physical and emotional abuse or neglect, which are the most frequent issues in child abuse cases, face penalties of up to five years in prison or fines up to 50 million KRW.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.