RIVER EDGE, N.J. – A New Jersey teacher with a second career as an actor is losing his job after an arbitrator concluded that he showed students a clip of himself in bed with an actress.
Technology teacher Richard Graffanino denied showing the film clip to six eighth-grade girls at River Dell Middle School in River Edge. A tenure arbitrator ruled Tuesday the evidence showed otherwise.
The arbitrator says the scene conveyed the impression that the characters were waking up after having sex. A sheet covers the woman just below her bare shoulders and the shirtless Graffanino up to his waist.
The arbitrator says seeing the 39-year-old teacher "as an actor in a sexual situation would be confusing and disturbing to the students."
Graffanino tells The Record newspaper the girls gave conflicting testimony and the investigation was unfair.
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