The fault is not with the school administrators. It is with the system. Bad things happen when you put many children of the same age together. Children need role models and when they don't have them around they look at each other for role models (aka peer orientation) and this is a sample outcome.

The only thing different today is the technology creates new opportunities for those bad things. When I was a kid it was things like smoking, bullying, vandalism etc. As an ex-kid :) and a parent let me tell you, without constant feedback kids just do the dumbest things.

As another ex-kid, many of the dumbest things I and my peers did were thrilling especially _because_ they were forbidden. I can definitely understand why it would be a great rush to create/share nude selfies given US attitudes about nudity and sex.

It was happening in school - some of the images were taken at school. The coordination was mostly done at school. The main people involved were all part of the school American Football team.

And the school was the only thing that all those children shared. The culture of the school is obviously a factor.

You can support and educate your child about nude images, but if s/he's spending 30 hours a week among people pressuring her/him for nude photos s/he is going to need to do a lot of resisting. (Which, in this case, may have increased the "point value" (if that bit's true) and thus increase the numbers of people trying to get pictures.)

> The police shouldn't be involved unless a charge has been levied by someone (e.g. "this person took pictures without my permission")

Children can't consent to sexual activity. Law makers decided that nude images of children is sexual activity. Thus, children can't consent to making nude images of themselves.

EDIT: Also, Bob may not care that Ann has the image. But if Ann's phone images get hacked and Bob's nude image ends up on the Internet Bob may feel considerable distress. We know that some / many people who were photographed during their child sexual abuse will experience trauma from the existence of those images.

> child sexual abuse

We're talking about teenagers engaging in sexual activity with other teenagers.

We don't know if there was coercion involved or not.

The child's inability to consent to sex is inherent to the attributes of the child, and derives in no way from the attributes of the child's partner. Therefore, any sex that a child participates in, regardless of any attributes of the partner, is non-consensual and therefore the child is being raped.

That's the argument you're up against.

Who's the criminal if they're both underage? We know what the jury thinks, but that notwithstanding.

The person possessing the image, unless they are the person in that image.

The person distributing that image, unless they are the person in that image.

The person taking the image, unless they are the person in that image.

The person causing that image to be taken whether by normal persuasion, or by coercion, or financial incentive, or violence. (Unless they are the person in that image).

I'm not keen on using that bit of criminal law on children. It doesn't feel like justice, and it doesn't seem to be working.

> When something is not happening at school

We don't know that. We don't whether some pictures were taken or traded inside the school. And if that's the case, the school administrator are responsible.

But I'm more concerned about the destinations of these photos which may likely end up in child-porn sites on the internet.

edit: ok it seems some pictures were actually taken in the school.

The article does imply that we know that.

> The photo-sharing, some of which took place in school,