VAN BUREN TOWNSHIP, Mich.—As anyone who's been following the news knows, teachers in a lot of areas of the country are barely surviving on their salaries, and on top of that, often have to pay for schoolroom supplies out of their own pockets, much of it thanks to conservative millionaire Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who doesn't think public education holds a candle to the private and parochial schools she'd rather support.
So perhaps it's not too surprising that many teachers have taken second jobs in order to make ends meet—and perhaps only a bit more surprising that some of those jobs are as cam models, as is the case with Van Buren Township school teacher Linda Janack.
Janack teaches reading at the Edgemont Elementary School, and her colleagues think pretty highly of her, telling TV station WDIV-4 that she has "a sterling reputation in terms of her work duties."
But the fact that Janack has exposed her body on the internet by having sex with her husband Scott on camera was apparently too much for some parents to take, and they're moving to prevent Janack from resuming her teaching duties when school opens next month.
"My kids, when they talked about her, really liked her," said one mother who spoke anonymously to WDIV. "But that's not OK, and I can't believe if the district knows about it they're still allowing it. ... Especially with them being open about it, that's not something you should be doing when you're in the profession of being around children."
The woman also threatened to withdraw her child from the school system if Janack is allowed to continue working there.
Of course, it's unlikely that the kids in Janack's class, who would at most be 12 years old, would themselves have seen their teacher performing, so the cam activities are clearly the parents' problem rather than the kids', and several of the news site's readers wrote comments of support for Janack's second job.
"Who cares?" wrote one commenter. "They're not molesting children. They doing something private in their off time away from school hours. If your teacher becomes pregnant during the school year, is she suddenly under scrutiny for having had sex with someone? No! What she does in her own time is her own business."
"These people KILL me. OMG. A teacher that has sex and records it. What a HORRIBLE HUMAN. Not fit to teach MY child in elementary school," wrote another. "Get over yourselves. Here are the REAL important questions. Is she a good teacher and employee? Is this done off of the clock? Does this pose any harm what so ever to the students? NO??? Well then leave it alone. Mind your business, live YOUR life and let her live hers. Good teachers are already hard enough to find and they are severely underpaid for what they do. What else needs to be said?"
But in order to make money as a cam model, one needs an outlet, and as can be seen from the WDIV screen-grab above, one of Janack's outlets is CamSoda, where she apparently last had a live show on January 27. In any case, CamSoda VP Daryn Parker had words of encouragement for his model, and took her detractors to task for their censorious views.
"Having a second a job and source of income is not uncommon in this country, especially in today’s gig economy and connected world," Parker wrote. "For me, it's admirable when a person gets a second job to support a lifestyle or family. It’s hardworking people like this that make America great. That’s why it’s disheartening to learn that Linda Janack, who performs on our site [CamSoda] to earn extra money, may potentially lose her job—one at which she excels, according to many. Being a cam performer is separate from teaching and does not affect her ability to teach. One wouldn’t get fired for, say, driving Uber; why should someone lose their job for being a cam performer? We implore the school district investigating the case to make the right decision and let Linda earn money and continue doing what she loves."
School Superintendent Pete Kudlak said he and his board are "working through the process now," and that although the original complaint against Janack didn't come from any parent of Janack's students, he has heard from "a couple" of other parents.
Kudlak described the veteran teacher as "an interventionist who works with struggling students."
An article in the Detroit Free Press notes that in 2010, when the Michigan Court of Appeals considered the case of a teacher who was "photographed simulating a sex act with a mannequin during a bachelorette party," it ruled that a public school teacher "can't be fired for private behavior that doesn't adversely affect students." The Michigan Supreme Court declined to review that finding.
No doubt Janack will learn the fate of her teaching job within the next couple of weeks. Let's hope Van Buren Township indeed makes "the right decision."
