Carmen, another senior under a pseudonym in Chan’s calculus class, acknowledges his insensitive comments, but believes that his teaching and role as an educator was overall positive. “I definitely oppose the comments he made, as someone who has struggled with body image stuff, and as an outspoken feminist,” she said. However, she believes that Chan’s intention with his problems was to engage students with quirky questions, not make them uncomfortable. “I don’t think he realized that people might have been hurt by his jokes. I think he had fundamentally good intentions, and that he was just trying to find a way to connect with what he saw as immature teenagers who were struggling to pay attention in class,” she said.
However, other students felt that Chan’s comments and actions were harmful and created an uncomfortable environment. Tabitha, a senior under a pseudonym and a former Algebra 2 student of Chan’s, found Chan’s behavior concerning. While she also experienced strange comments in class and questionable math problems, she also highlighted what she saw as inappropriate behavior online. “He followed many of his girl students on Instagram, including me, who were underage… he likes their posts, he’s commenting on their posts,” she said. On one occasion she ran into him outside of school, and he later messaged her on instagram. “I also spotted him in public once and he DM’ed me afterwards and he was like, ‘I saw you’,” she said. Once, during class, he asked her if she had a ‘sugar daddy’ when she mentioned that she was waiting for her dad to pick her up.
Additionally, Tabitha believes that he favored his female students and treated them differently than their male counterparts. “I feel like he did take a favoritism towards the girl students. Sometimes he would give them food and snacks and little rewards and such, which kind of seems unprofessional to me,” she said. Other students said that Chan had given out food in class, but Kara said, “Whenever he had food it was an invitation for the whole class to eat.” She did not interpret it as preferential treatment.
Tabitha wasn’t the only student who was uncomfortable with Chan’s actions. Emma, a senior under a pseudonym who took his Algebra 2 class junior year, said that she liked him as a teacher but was uncomfortable with certain behaviors he would show. He would come to help her with math, she said, and touch her shoulder while doing so. One time, she said, he came up to her and a friend in class and said “Girls are either pretty or they can do math.” After Emma had left his class, over the summer, Chan’s Instagram account began following her. He would like Instagram stories that she posted in “Festival outfits,” she said. Once, he DMed her to ask about access to Baker Beach, where she had previously posted pictures in a bikini. She did not respond, and Chan did not pursue further contact on Instagram after that one instance.
San Francisco Unified School District’s (SFUSD) School Employee Code of Conduct with Students lists “maintaining personal contact with a student outside of school by electronic communications, including social media,” as a violation of Professional Adult/Student Boundaries.