The Pennsbury School Board has voted to hire a law firm to act as a special counsel to investigate after an educator was arrested in a child pornography investigation.
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On Tuesday, music teacher Christopher Bygott, 47, of Hamilton, New Jersey, was charged with child pornography and criminal use of a community facility after an investigation by the Bucks County Detectives into alleged child porn being uploaded to Amazon’s photo storage service.
In court papers, investigators said they traced the IP used to upload the images to the Pennsbury School District and identified the subscriber through Amazon’s information as the district’s curriculum coordinator for instrumental music.
In response to the investigation, Pennsbury suspended Bygott last week after being informed by the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, according to information laid out by administration in a meeting with parents earlier this week.
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One parent who was at the meeting told LevittownNow.com Smith and other administrators spoke with parents of students who came into contact with Bygott. They answered questions and said the district will keep looking into what happened.
Superintendent Dr. Thomas Smith wrote to parents earlier this week: “Law enforcement officials do not believe that any Pennsbury students were involved in these alleged activities, and we are cooperating fully with law enforcement as they conduct a thorough investigation. We will also be conducting a full internal investigation.”
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At the school board meeting Thursday evening, the board voted to hire law firm Fox Rothschild to probe the situation surrounding Bygott.
Credit: Bucks County District Attorney’s Office
“We are conducting a full investigation,” Smith said, adding the probe will be in addition to the law enforcement investigation.
“We want to be assured we covered all the bases in terms of interactions with students,” Smith added.
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Questions were raised at public comment about the district’s network and content filtering systems if Bygott was able to upload alleged child porn using the school’s network.
While court papers said Bygott used Pennsbury’s network to upload photos from his personal device, Smith said the district uses “industry standard filters and firewalls that are comprehensive.”
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The Bucks County Detectives wrote in court papers that more than 2,000 images and videos of child sexual abuse material were found on Bygott’s iPhone.
Bygott was free this week on $250,000 unsecured bail awaiting a preliminary hearing.
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