A high school teacher could be out of a job in a dispute over a personal web site he created before he was hired by a western Pennsylvania school district. But the state's teachers union has vowed to defend his right to free expression on the web, arguing that the site has nothing to do with his in-school behavior.

The Grove City Area School District placed music teacher and assistant band director Dan Konnen, 24, of Hermitage, Pa., on an unpaid suspension in March when students found his personal web site, which contains jokes about genitalia and scatological references extracted from the controversial Comedy Central cartoon series South Park, as well as other sources.

When visited by an eSchool News reporter in April, the site said it was created in December 1997 and last updated in September 2001, meaning Konnen had updated it at least once since being hired by the school district in August 2001.

Pennsylvania State Education Association attorney Tod Park, who is representing Konnen, said the web site doesn't contain pornography and Konnen didn't tell students about it.

"He talks about who he is. There are pictures of him fully clothed in [high school] band camp. There [are] horoscopes and jokes," Park said. "Most high school students have access to far more objectionable material."

Nevertheless, the incident adds another wrinkle to the legal dilemmas of schools in the internet age—and begs the question of whether teachers who maintain personal web sites should be held accountable by their employers for material posted to the internet outside of school and intended for personal use.

Similar controversies have erupted over the discovery of potentially offensive, student-created web sites, many of which have been accused of unfairly chastising teachers and insulting fellow students.

In these cases, schools so far have had little success in punishing students for their online antics outside of school. In fact, in some cases, schools have been forced to pay several thousand dollars in legal damages to students who were wrongly suspended for web sites created on their own free time. (See "Use restraint when dealing with offensive student web sites," http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/PFshowstory.cfm?ArticleID=168.)

But what happens when the web site is the product of a school system employee, and not a student?

The school board has begun the process to dismiss Konnen on the grounds of "immorality, incompetence, intemperance, persistent negligence," and other reasons, said district Superintendent Robert Post.

The teachers union plans to file a grievance on Konnen's behalf, Park said, adding, "It may come down to a First Amendment issue."

Maybe. But some legal experts say Konnen's constitutional right to free speech might not be enough to spare his job in this case.