The prefectural board of education announced on March 16 that a 51-year-old teacher at a public junior high school in Shunan, Yamaguchi Prefecture, had been suspended for three months for repeated inappropriate behavior, including “impulsively” putting his colleague’s toothbrush into his mouth about 20 times.
According to the education board, the instructor visited a school nurse’s office 30 times without authorization between early September and late November in 2021, each time at roughly 5 a.m. He went through the room’s desk and drawers, putting the nursing teacher’s toothbrush in his mouth around 20 times.
The school nurse noticed something was wrong, including the wet toothbrush, and set up a video camera in the sickroom, which captured the male teacher’s inappropriate behavior multiple times.
The teacher was quoted as saying, “I got carried away with an impulse to put someone’s toothbrush into my mouth. I felt close to the nursing teacher.” The suspension was issued on March 16.
Separately, the prefectural education board announced that a 59-year-old teacher at Mine Municipal Isa Elementary School had been fired as of March 16, following her arrest for driving while intoxicated. In November 2021, he drove a car after drinking at home in Nagato and was arrested on the spot.
When questioned by the school, this teacher allegedly admitted to driving while inebriated in Shimonoseki and causing property damage in July 2021.
Japanese original by Yusuke Hiratsuka, Yamaguchi Bureau
