Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Back in February, Professor Turley wrote a blog post titled Teacher Suspended for Writing Critical Comments on Her Personal Blog. Many people who commented on the post sided with Natalie Munroe, the teacher who had been suspended. I did not. I thought the school administration did the right thing after I read some of the critical comments Munroe made about her students and comments she said she’d like to be able to note on her students’ report cards.
Munroe’s blog comments about her students include the following:
• “I hear the trash company is hiring.”
• “I called out sick a couple of days just to avoid your son.”
• “Rude, beligerent [sic], argumentative f**k.”
• “Just as bad as his sibling. Don’t you know how to raise kids?”
• “Asked too many questions and took too long to ask them. The bell means it’s time to leave!”
• A complete and utter jerk in all ways. Although academically ok, your child has no other redeeming qualities.
• Lazy asshole.
• Two words come to mind: brown AND nose.
• Weirdest kid I’ve ever met.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer: In one sketch posted on the blog, an image of a bus tagged “Short Bus” appears under the slogan, “I don’t care if you lick windows, take the special bus or occasionally pee on yourself, you hang in there Sunshine, you’re … special.”
People who felt Munroe had done nothing wrong may be happy to find out that she has been reinstated to her old job. According to her attorney Steven L. Rover, she will be allowed to return to her Central Bucks East High School classroom this fall. She would teach the same classes at the same school. Rovner said, “I personally believe that her talents as a teacher would best be utilized in a different school within the district, however, this is not an option. She is taking a few days to digest this development in what has become an important national first amendment, employment, and education case.”
Having worked as a public school educator for more than thirty years, I can’t imagine that many students would want to have Munroe for a teacher. I would doubt that many parents would want their children in any of her classes. I know that I wouldn’t want my child to have her for a teacher.
I guess we’ll have to wait to see whether Ms. Munroe decides to return to her teaching position at Central Bucks east High School when classes resume in a few weeks.
I welcome comments on this story. I’d like to know what people think.
FYI
From the ACLU: Free Speech Rights of Public School Teachers
Where are we going & why are we in this handbasket (Natalie Munroe’s new blog)
SOURCES
Teacher Suspended for Blog Posts About Students (NBC Philadelphia)
CB East Teacher Removed After Blogging About Students (Doylestown Patch)
Natalie Munroe Suspended: Worst Insults the Teacher Made About Her Students (AOL News)
Central Bucks East teacher returning after blog dispute (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Natalie Munroe, Pennsylvania Teacher, Reinstated After Disparaging Students On Blog (Huffington Post)
Bucks teacher: Students are ‘rude, disengaged, lazy whiners’ (Philadelphia Inquirer)
The issue I have with her conduct is that she is a bully, she is insulting, she has no respect for children (a fatal flaw in a teacher because respect for your students is a necessary prerequisite to being able to teach them) and she is outright abusive. How is it that a person goes to jail for five years for setting up an internet date with a fictional 13-year-old BECAUSE THE INTERNET IS A PUBLIC PLACE WHERE TALK EQUALS ACTION yet a person displaying contempt, disdain and outright hatred for children WHO CAN READ HER WORDS AND SUFFER FROM THEM is not guilty of a crime because she has First Amendment rights? I’d wish the school fired her and took on the union in that instance saying, “If you want to protect your people, protect them FROM people like her, not HER.” Carve out an exception meant to show that you can’t publicly humiliate children and continue to exert control over their lives. Crazy B^tch.
This is a nice blog and it is interesting one, Thanks for sharing it.
pianolerenspelenonline mae
I think a lot of people need to remove the stick from their butt. Oh, did that offend you? GOOD! When is this society going to stop worrying about offending people who specifically look for things to be offended by? As long as this mentality continues the TRUTH will be imposible to tell, hear and justify. Whiney-assed adults.
Otteray,
Thanks for the link. I just found this:
Blogging teacher might not have anyone to teach
http://www.phillyburbs.com/my_town/doylestown/blogging-teacher-might-not-have-anyone-to-teach/article_73622262-6ec2-52ce-92f5-350cb5458bb9.html
Excerpt:
Munroe wrote multiple posts in the year that followed in which she talked about her own boredom and her desire to “sit this one out.” She described her students as “lazy,” “rat-like,” “frightfully dim,” “whiny, simpering grade-grubbers” and a variety of curse words. She said she wished she could tell parents, “I hate your kid.”
She also posted an image of a school bus with the comment, “I don’t care if you lick windows, take the special bus or occasionally pee on yourself … you hang in there sunshine. You’re friggin’ special.”
Munroe did not name students in any of the posts reviewed by the newspaper.
Munroe deleted her blog the day she was suspended, but restarted it — without the controversial posts — a few days later. She said she stood by what she wrote in her old blog posts. Her new blog had 692 followers at press time.
Munroe was on maternity leave following her suspension; her maternity leave ends this month.
At the time Munroe was suspended, administrators said they were investigating what Munroe wrote on the blog and how much she wrote while she was at work and using school computers. Laws declined to say Wednesday morning whether the district’s investigation revealed that Munroe had violated school policy by blogging on school computers or school time.
Laws also said at the time Munroe was suspended that her comments were “very egregious” and “certainly could result in termination.”
Munroe’s attorney then threatened to file a First Amendment law suit against the district if it fired Munroe.
Administrators announced their intent to allow Munroe to return to her classroom at CB East earlier this month. They said they were allowing Munroe to return because she has a “legal right” to do so.
Laws said the district will accept requests to withdraw from Munroe’s classes even after school starts, and the district will honor every one.
Munroe still is blogging at http://www.nataliemunroe.com, though she has said little on the site in the past few weeks. Her last post was a note of thanks to a newspaper columnist who supported her.
District officials are in the process of drafting policies to address the use of social media by staff; Laws said he will bring those policies to the board in September.