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Teachers Suspended For Explicit Video, Leashing Student

Posted: 5:21 pm EDT April 2, 2009Updated: 6:13 pm EDT April 2, 2009

During this time, when teachers across Central Florida are facing layoffs, you'd think every teacher would be on their best behavior, but three Volusia County teachers were suspended.

Two were suspended for sending an inappropriate video on school e-mail. Another was suspended for putting a student on a leash. All three teachers were back in the classroom Thursday.

The coaches who emailed the explicit video from school computers and the teacher who wrapped a bungee cord around a student's neck to discipline him all admitted they used poor judgment, but some parents and school employees are not satisfied with their punishments.

Teresa Volkman, a teacher at Silver Sands Middle School in Port Orange, put a bungee cord around the neck of a 6th grader and told his classmates to lead him around like a dog as a form of punishment.

Parents and other school employees Eyewitness News talked to were surprised to learn Volkman was only suspended for one day without pay.

Laura McLaughlin works in the cafeteria at Silver Sands.

"I don't think that's enough if she had a child drag another child around with a bungee. That's not enough," she said. "If it were my child, I would want the teacher gone."

Volkman has been teaching in Volusia County for more than 20 years. In a letter to the school board she admitted she was wrong and wrote, "I guess I have been watching too much Dog Whisperer on TV."

Volkman is not the only Volusia County teacher in hot water. Two football coaches, one from New Smyrna Beach High and the other from Seabreeze High, were recently suspended for three days without pay for e-mailing a racy Santa video from school computers in December.

The video shows Santa with nude girls, drinking and doing drugs while yelling profanities about children and sex.

It comes at a time when schools are talking about laying off teachers because of budget cuts.

The sixth grader who had the bungee cord wrapped around his neck was slightly injured. There were red marks on his neck and his parents had him removed from Volkman's class.

As for the punishments, all three teachers have never been disciplined before, so the school board says the unpaid suspensions were punishment enough.

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