SOUTH CENTRE TOWNSHIP - A special education teacher at the Columbia-Montour Vocational-Technical School was fired earlier this year after a two-year investigation into charges he had improper Internet conversations with two former students, the (Bloomsburg) Press-Enterprise reported in Wednesday's edition.
Citing state records, the paper said Scott M. Shaffer, 33, who was terminated Sept. 18 from his job as a math and special education teacher, asked two 17-year-old girls to send him photos from their beach vacation and offered to buy them alcohol. He said they were his "favorites" and that he missed them during the summer of 2010.
Shaffer had been suspended without pay in 2010, but an appeal this past spring awarded him $74,712 from August 2010 to March 2012, even though he never returned to the classroom, the paper reported. After new accusations arose, Shaffer was fired earlier this school year, according to the Press-Enterprise story.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), meanwhile, filed a public reprimand against him, but stopped short of suspending or revoking his teaching license. That means Shaffer is free to get another teaching job, although other schools will see the disciplinary action on his file, the paper reported.
The first online exchange took place just a few weeks after the two girls graduated in June 2010. During the discussions, Shaffer allegedly used the word "milk" as code to invite the girls to drink alcohol with him at his family's riverfront property.
Shaffer never provided the teens with alcohol, so no criminal charges were filed. The conversations allegedly went on for six days before the mother of one teen discovered the conversations and contacted school officials.
Shaffer, when he met with school officials, said he didn't remember typing those remarks because he was drinking. He was reprimanded by the school and told to stay away from the two females, according to the newspaper.
PDE and the vo-tech launched separate investigations, and Shaffer was suspended a month later.
At a PDE hearing, Shaffer claimed he only opened a Facebook account to post a memorial for a friend, and that the two girls sought him out. He also said he never asked for any photos of the girls in their bathing suits or anything illicit.