A group of middle school students in Rhode Island thought their teacher was “argumentative,” so they kept a log of all his inappropriate interactions with the girls in their class. Now, the teacher is on administrative leave and under investigation. The group of boys at Davisville Middle School in North Kingstown started the “pedo database” after they watched their teacher stare at girls in their class, giving them nicknames like “sweetheart” and “sunshine” and asking them to dance for him, The Boston Globe have reported. When the group tried to report the situation, the adults did not take them seriously, one of them told the Globe. The teacher himself had even commented that he had received complaints for decades without action being taken against him, according to the Globe. The Globe reported that one boy noted how uncomfortable his peers were in class. “Sometimes they would laugh. Sometimes they would just sit there awkwardly,” the boy told the Globe. “Even the people who said he was ‘creepy’ laughed because they obviously weren’t trying to single him out or anything. So it’s just fake laughs, laughing awkwardly.” After “other students noticed,” the group decided in January 2021 to create a “pedo database” on Discord to gather “evidence” of his behavior, according to the Globe. “This is now the official conversation that we will later use as evidence against (the teacher) about pedophilia in case something comes up in the future and we are proven right,” one boy wrote in the group chat, according to Hydrogeo. When classes went online due to the pandemic, they noted in the database when their teacher said, “You all love me, so choose love” and “You have to get up and dance now.” On another occasion, he remarked that everyone should be “in a swimsuit tomorrow.” Once classes resumed at school, they watched when the teacher teased or flirted with girls. Once, he asked a girl to take off her shoes and wiggle her toes, the Globe was told. One boy told the Globe he felt bad for the girls “because sometimes it just seems like it was a humiliating thing.” “He would play a song and make one of them get up and dance,” the student added. In April 2022, the teacher was removed from the school and placed on leave, according to the Globe. The interim superintendent said they are investigating allegations the teacher stalked a pre-teen, middle school girl he was tutoring and was inappropriate with other girls, the Globe reported. The high school girl’s family, represented by attorney Timothy J. Conlon, said she reported the behavior to school officials and was treated with “deliberate indifference,” The Providence Journal reported. The teacher was only removed from coaching high school students in the district after the family threatened to get a restraining order against him, the Globe reported. Once the public was asked for information, one of the high school boys told his mother about the “pedo database” and Conlon was contacted. The diary has since been shared with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families, the state education department and the attorney investigating the school, according to the Globe. “I never thought this would actually be used as evidence, but we always had it as if it were,” the boy, now 15 and enrolled in high school, told the Globe. “So I’m glad we did it, even though it might have seemed a little silly at times.” A representative for Conlon did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
