A teacher from a secondary school in Portmore, St Catherine, has found herself in the midst of an embarrassing maelstrom after explicit images of her were posted on social media last week.

According to Jamaica Observer sources, students of the school found the photographs on a popular social media website mid-week, and by Friday, the situation escalated, resulting in the teacher being chased and jeered by the students.

The teacher allegedly received a phone call from someone with a male voice who threatened to post the pictures if she failed to be intimate with him, but the source said that by the time the blackmail could become a reality, the pictures had already been posted for all to see.

“She refused, and by the Wednesday everybody started to tell her they saw it on (the website). It was all over (the school), but nobody confronted her,” the individual said.

The troubled teacher reportedly closed off her duties early on Friday in the face of the worsening situation, as the photographs had by that time been circulated even more widely by students and others. But when the form teacher showed up for classes on Monday, it is said that she was locked out of class by the students, after which they proceeded to “run her down”.

It is understood that the dean of discipline intervened and that the teacher has since reported the matter to the police. Amidst the ruckus and ensuing finger-pointing, parents have become involved with calls for disciplinary action to be taken against the teacher.

It is said that the young teacher, in her defence, said she had recently sold the device and inadvertently left content stored in the phone.

Director of corporate communication in the education ministry, Bryon Buckley told the Sunday Observer that one parent had contacted the unit, arguing that her child had been suspended over a similar matter and suggested that the teacher should be suspended as well.

“Those are two different matters (but) if (the situation involving the teacher) is true then that’s a matter that the school needs to investigate based on the merit or demerit of professional conduct. A report came to the ministry and a note has been sent to the regional office,” he said.

Buckley further pointed to the ministry’s policy about professional conduct as contained in the education code, which would cover matters such as this one, but said usually school boards would address these type of situations. “So all I can say is that the ministry heard about it just this week and the report has been passed on,” he said.

This incident, as well as others in recent times, has brought into sharp focus the need for the education ministry to establish a social media policy for students as well as staff.

In 2014, explicit images of Dervin Wellington, the then acting principal of Christiana High School in Manchester, in bed with a younger man performing explicit sexual acts went viral on social media.

Wellington said that he was the victim of cybercrime and that the images had been tampered with.