There has to be a sensible approach where nobody decides this guy is an unprofessional wrong'un based on vague accusations in teenage gossip (and the fact they don't like his social media), and dismissing what students say on the grounds that year 9 girls are bitchy drama queens.
There is. Though I do think its kind of unprofessional for a teacher to have their account searchable in that way, but thats mostly because all those I know in the profession are very strict on that, to the point where noone can search them at all on FB, and they have to send friend requests, noone can find them to request!
I genuinely have not seen anyone write him off as a wrong un because of the SM thing and the 'feeling'. I have however, seen much dismissing of the girls and what they have said, and many generalisations about teen girls also!
Have waffled a lot on here but my main thoughts are really..OP was correct to bring up the social media thing with the head. Even if there were not pics of half naked bodybuilders (and yes, can well believe it, the men seem to wear even less than the women on accounts DH follows!) its simply good practise for a teachers social media to not be so..open online. This protects the teacher more than anyone else really.
The teacher 'looking at' girls and making the uncomfortable, might be something, might be nothing. But whichever way, there is nothing that can be done about it at the min, nor does it seem the OP wanted anything done about that part anyway. At the same time, I refuse to discount the 'gut feeling' that girls (and probably boys too, only hear about it from women/girls though really) sometimes get. I also refuse to write off their feelings because they are teen girls who will no doubt sometimes like drama like all teens do. I find the leaping to insulting teen girls bizarre for FWR. But I do see a lot of new faces which could explain this. If people did join to post here, welcome and please stay on MN! More the merrier.
As a side note too though, I have been increasingly uncomfortable with how threads about women/girls go on this board these days. Too much NAMALT and such going on..for the area of the site this board is in, but thats my issue!
The constant insistence on 'she didn't ask anything more about feeling uncomfortable' constantly is annoying too. Given many many women cannot quite articulate what 'that feeling' is, teens are unlikely to be able to. I still have no idea how to explain it myself, but the only time I ever ignored my gut, it was the wrong thing to do. Thats not to say, again, that theres anything dodgy here. Just that I know 'the feeling' well, and in my own experiece, the only time I ignored it, I shouldn't have.
Finally, I still want to see where OP has said she wants the guy sacked, or anything similar to that. She did say her 'preference' would be a female teacher. I would agree, when DD is a teenager, I would prefer her having a female PE teacher and assume the school will facilitate this wherever possible. I have also not seen the witchunt thats claimed.
So yeah. In short, he has done nothing wrong besides have his SM account open really. There might be more to this, there might not be. He should not be written off as a perv because of a feeling and posting pics of bikini clad women. Equally they should not immediately be assumed liars, drama seekers, etc just because they are teenage girls. Nor should the mother be accused of all kinds of vendettas because she wishes to talk about the whle thing on the feminist chat board (without identifying anyone, so no harm done as its just a chat). And the thread, if nothing else has been a great read and one of the most interesting ones I have seen on here in a good while! So cheers to all really.
Possibly another huge waffly post, but am on a roll with essays today it seems 