A photo surfaced on Facebook a few months ago showing a group of Markham high school teachers celebrating after an axe-throwing match.

As is common, if not customary among those who toss axes at targets for recreation, the teachers from Markham District High School posed together following the contest, smiled for the camera and collectively flipped the bird.

When a student posted the teachers’ saucy photographic memento, there followed a storm of parental outrage and bureaucratic damage control.

York Region District School Board officials, according to Freedom of Information documents obtained by the Toronto Sun, tried to spin, minimize and suppress any negative publicity they feared the picture would generate.

They even, the documents suggest, tried to manipulate a student into refusing to speak with media, and a teacher into justifying what in any other context might be simply viewed as an enjoyable and harmless night out with colleagues.

That fun night out actually took place in March 2015, when one of the teachers first uploaded the pic to a personal — but publicly-accessible — Facebook profile. The photo caused a minor tempest even then, and the teacher removed the picture.

However, it had already been copied by a student, who held onto it and posted the shot this past April.

That’s when it was seen by a number of parents, who banded together as “Concerned Markham” and began — via e-mail — to vent their outrage at the York Region District School Board and media.

The board quickly reacted, the FOI documents suggest; by first trying to blame the student who posted the photo and offering suggestions about what he should say to reporters.

Then, the school’s principals, superintendent, trustees and board’s public relations staff made a concerted effort at damage control, sending more than 35 e-mails back and forth within a seven-hour period on April 8. They even conducted research to determine whether the now controversial shot had popped up on Google images.

School principal Michelle Kane decided, at the urging of the teachers’ union, to speak with the axe-throwing teachers out of concern that “if this hit the news, they would be blindsided.”

The vice-principal purportedly used his own Twitter account to ask the student to remove the tweet to “minimize impact,” according to the documents.

“Is it possible to ask the account holder ... to remove the photo to minimize impact?” principal Michelle Kane poses to the concerned parent, the school’s vice-principals, a school trustee and school board Supt. Peter Tse.

Tse then sends the board’s public relations team this suggestion: “Am wondering whether he can help us by saying something like ... it was a picture/tradition of the sport, he got it from the teacher’s Facebook last year ... he wrote the comments to it that is not related to anything ... etc. Thoughts?”

YRDSB public relations spokesman Christina Choo-Hum approached the principal to see whether the student ended up speaking to the Toronto Sun. She also directed a trustee not to speak to media.

“(The student) can’t speak on behalf of the teachers, but he could speak on behalf of his own actions in terms of taking the photo from a private page, posting inappropriately and subsequently removing the photo,” she said.

“On the flip side, if (the student) doesn’t return the call, there’s likely not a story at all, which may benefit the teachers who I’m sure would prefer the photo not be printed.”

The teacher did finally delete the photo three days later.

Effectively, everyone involved attempted to sweep the whole matter under the proverbial carpet.

In the FOI documents, the teachers named from the high school include Sarah Wheatley, who works in Markham District High’s library department, math teacher Michael Raffoul, and the science department’s Linda Bulmer, Jabeen Ahmed and Gail Thomas.

In a response to Sun questions about the board’s handling the incident, Choo-Hum said students and staff are expected to abide by the board’s Appropriate Use of Technology policy and all other policies.

“We do not provide advice to students about speaking to the media unless asked,” she said.

That policy suggests students and staff are expected to ensure “information technology is being used in a safe, appropriate and responsible manner.”

Other guidelines from the Ontario College of Teachers on the use of electronic communication and social media cover the fine lines between personal and professional activity online with for members.

“Practitioners are individuals with private lives, however, off-duty conduct matters. Sound judgment and due care should be exercised,” reads the 2011 OCT memo.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, which represents the interests of teachers, chose to steer clear of the controversy.

“We don’t comment on personnel matters,” said spokesman Lori Foote.

Canada’s Supreme Court has also ruled that teachers’ off-duty conduct, even when not directly related to students, is relevant to their suitability to teach.

The school board’s Tse, speaking with the principal, the documents show, ended one exchange with a poignant and prescient thought.

“I am sure there is some context with this,” he said in one of the e-mails. “And one day, we will laugh about this ... I think.”

jyuen@postmedia.com