When a Theatre Teacher Is the Danger: On the Charges Against Austin Meyer
by Chris Peterson
CW: This story describes graphic crimes against children.
There’s no easy way to say this, so let’s not sugarcoat it.
Austin Meyer, a drama teacher at Truman High School in Independence, Missouri, was arrested in March 2025 and charged with 11 counts of possessing child pornography. The images were found on his school-issued laptop during a malware investigation. He is currently in custody on a $100,000 bond.
These charges are not minor. They are not murky. They are devastating, and they center on material that exploits and harms children.
When the accused is a theatre teacher, it cuts deep.
Being a drama teacher isn’t just about blocking scenes and assigning monologues. It’s about trust. It’s about being a safe space when nothing else at school feels safe. For so many students, the theatre classroom is the only place they feel seen. And when someone who is supposed to protect that sanctuary turns out to be the danger, it shakes everything.
Let’s be honest. Cases like this cast a long, ugly shadow over all of us who work in arts education. They make people side-eye every drama teacher. They call into question the safety of programs we’ve spent our careers building. And that’s what makes me so furious, because most of us are in this work to protect kids, not hurt them. But one person’s monstrous behavior makes that job so much harder for the rest of us.
This is a betrayal. Of students. Of parents. Of the community. Of the profession. And we have to talk about it. Not just with whispered horror, but with clarity and conviction.
Austin Meyer and his students(who have been blurred) at Truman High School.
What Meyer is accused of is not just egregiously illegal. It is a fundamental violation of the role he was entrusted to play. If found guilty, there is no redemption arc. There is no second act. There is only accountability and justice.
We also need to address how we move forward. The answer isn’t to retreat into silence or distance ourselves from the story. It is to be loud about what theatre education should be and to fight with everything we’ve got to make sure every program lives up to that standard.
That means schools must take digital security seriously. No educator should ever assume privacy on a device used to work with children. It means background checks need to be thorough, ongoing, and enforced. It means we cannot let any single teacher run a program without community oversight. No one should be left alone with students for hours on end without safeguards in place.
And most of all, it means empowering students to speak up if something feels wrong. Every kid deserves to know that if they report something, someone will listen. Someone will act.
This case is horrific, and it is also a wake-up call. We cannot afford to look the other way or assume this kind of thing wouldn’t happen here. It already has. And it will again if we don’t stay vigilant.
I know most of you reading this understand that. You’re drama teachers spending your weekends painting sets and your evenings helping students rehearse. You’re showing up because you care. You’re the reason theatre programs change lives instead of destroy them.
But we have to call this out. Loudly. Clearly. Publicly. Because silence in the face of this kind of evil helps no one.
To the students affected by Austin Meyer’s actions, directly or indirectly, you are not alone. And to the theatre teachers out there doing it right every single day, thank you. The work you’re doing matters. Keep going.