Photo potentially altered to hurt STHS teacher
By Kathryn Reed
A photo showing a South Tahoe High School teacher looking at half naked women on a computer in his classroom has been circulating around the district and beyond.
“The teacher is on administrative leave pending an investigation. Since this is a personnel matter, we have no further comment,” Lake Tahoe Unified School District Superintendent Jim Tarwater told Lake Tahoe News.
It is easy to look at the history of websites that have been viewed on a computer. It is not known if the district has done so and what was found.
Lake Tahoe News had an independent photo attorney analyze the picture to help determine if it is real.
According to attorney Carolyn Wright, “The square indicated by the red arrows indicates someone blocked out what was there. The green shows the shoulder is not a clean line, indicating poor cloning. The blue arrows show the women’s faces are clearer but the photos on the top and bottom of the screen are extremely blurry.”
This is the original photograph sent to Lake Tahoe News.
“There are several indications that this photo has been altered,” attorney and professional photographer Carolyn Wright told Lake Tahoe News.
The photo shows teacher Paul Kushner looking at a questionable website. It’s a picture of the back of his head with him focused on a computer that has images of women in bras.
But the pixilation is not the same throughout the photo.
Plus, the whiteboard in the background and his clothing are in focus, while images on the computer are blurry. Cameras can’t make the middle part of photo blurry. They can make the foreground or background sharp or fuzzy – not the middle, as is the case with the photo in question. And cell phone cameras don’t have the capability to do anything but keep everything in focus.
Kushner has been teaching in Lake Tahoe Unified School District for decades and is the founder of the district’s choral program. He has a master’s degree in computer education.
He was not available for comment. Jodi Dayberry, head of the local teacher’s union, did not respond to an inquiry.
However, this is not the district’s first foray down this path. In 2006, Meyers Elementary School teacher Karsten Gronwald was arrested on child pornography charges. In 2008, he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
If it turns out someone was out to slander Kushner, they could face criminal charges.
I will be interested to hear more about this story.
The idea that someone manufactured evidence to damage someone’s reputation and even get them in legal trouble. Does not sound far fetched to me.
And if it is true the underlying motivation would be interesting to know.
There’s a great problem with digital photography used in court cases. With photoshop the photos can easily be altered, then used in court. I expected this problem to surface long before now.
I’m sorry to say but you would be very wrong about your comment pizza. Digital photoshop jobs are very easy to prove where an original photograph is much harder. Starting off with digital medium, every camera is different and every sensor on a camera is different. As said in the article the pixels didn’t match. Meaning it was shot from 2 different cameras with different pixel size or pixels were cut. This can be seen very easy by opening a photo in photoshop and using a method of 3 different layers and filters you can see where the photo was copy and pasted. Now if we talk about original celluloid film medium this is where it can get tricky. A 35mm negative can be shot from many different cameras but you still end up with the same negative. This is almost a lost art at this point but a 35mm negatives can be pressed together and an original photo made from that (original photoshop). I’m guessing the photo in question will be easy to prove a photoshop job. I’m just guessing that this photo was edited and sent out in an email by one of the highschool kids. This would have kept the digital qualities needed to show it was copy and pasted. If he or she was smart they would have printed out a low resolution copy and mailed it in (like a UFO or Bigfoot photo). You will see this teacher get his job back real fast.
I received this photo in a text message from another parent, who’s child received it also in a text. I have 2 kids at the high school and they said they had seen it and that everyone at school had gotten it in a text. The kids heard at school that the boy who claims to have taken the picture took his phone into the office as evidence.
If that’s true, it’s very brazen.
My daughter is in this class and she says she has never felt uncomfortable not has she heard of any girls feeling uncomfortable in his class.
Having worked with and known this teacher, and his lovely family, for years, I can attest to his credibility as a decent and upstanding human being and stellar teacher. The student who is responsible for this should be punished and tried as an adult for such a heinous crime.
Thanks Sorry But — It was informative to hear from you. We are now more informed of how these things are done. There’s one point I’d like to make though. A person would need a dark room to print a falsified picture, originating from a film camera. Nearly no one has a darkroom with a photo printer at their home. With the digital technology so readily available today, altering a digital photo can now be done in the privacy of nearly everyone’s home. The know how that “has become a lost art”, as you say is not common knowledge either. With digital photography, nearly any one can alter a picture.
I am more than concerned that this photo, along with the name of the teacher, are published at all. This could cause a lot of trouble for Mr. Kushner, even if he did nothing wrong (and isn’t that the assumption of the law-innocent until proven guilty?). I certainly hope the truth will come out quickly.
A false accusation very simlar to this (alleged molestation) was lodged against a wonderful principal in Michigan in the district I once taught in.He became so depressed he committed suicide. Then this same girl tried doing the same thing the next year to a middle school teacher who called her bluff and the truth came out.This was before computers became so sophisticated.
Now kids can do all kinds of things on the computer.I hope and pray the district takes this with a grain of salt and doesn’t ruin the career and life of another teacher. And they should make EVERY EFFORT to trace that computer image.
Where did this story come from Kae? How did it come to your attention, And how can you run something so damaging about a member of the community with only one official comment, no press release or actual charges filed? This story is PURE speculation on your part, the only person you quote readily is someone NOT involved in the investigation — a layperson who is giving you their opinion about a photo they have no firsthand access to. You should have waited on this until you had more REAL info.
Where the HELL did you go to Journalism School? I would really like to know because if I showed this article to my teachers, they would agree that this story does not meet journalistic criteria for publication.
you close your article by saying that someone is trying to slander Mr. Kushner…when you are doing the exact same thing.
If this photo proves to be false I would hope that the culprits are charged and sentenced to the maximum penalty that the law provides. We need to hold these culprits accountable for their actions. Online slander and bullying must be stopped. These acts can not just be brushed aside as a part of youthful indiscretion and pranks. People are hurt and distressed by these misdeeds. It seems the term “zero tolerance for bullying, etc” is still not taken seriously by some. A precedence must be set and followed.
If you take a picture of any computer screen with any type of camera/ camera phone. It’s going to be pixelated no matter what. Not saying he is guilty and not saying he innocent. But serious, pull out your camera and take a picture.