Teacher Suspended For Speaking Her Mind
February 16, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 16th, 2011
AOL News
By: Mary Phillips-Sandy
Maybe online etiquette should be part of the curriculum — for teachers.
Bucks County, Pa., high school English teacher Natalie Munroe has been suspended after writing insulting comments about students, parents and other teachers on her public blog.
DoylestownPatch spoke with Jeffrey Shoolbraid, a former student of Munroe’s at Central Bucks East. According to Shoolbraid, a current student discovered Munroe’s blog and forwarded the link to other past and present CB East students.
Parents found out about the blog and complained to school officials, says CBS Philly. When confronted, Munroe admitted she’d written the blog.
Munroe’s blog, NataliesHandBasket.blogspot.com, has been shut down, but its contents are still visible thanks to Google’s cache. Its header reads “Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?”
In January Munroe wrote a long post describing the comments she wished she could enter on her students’ evaluations, noting at the outset that she was “being a renegade” and blogging at work.
Among the 39 barbs she listed:
• “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!”
• “Nowhere near as good as her sibling. Are you sure they’re related?”
• “Shy isn’t cute in 11th grade; it’s annoying. Must learn to advocate for himself instead of having Mommy do it.”
• “Too smart for her own good and refuses to play the school ‘game’ such that she’ll never live up to her true potential here.”
• “Am concerned that your kid is going to come in one day and open fire on the school. (Wish I was kidding.)”
Munroe concluded: “These comments, I think, would serve me well when filling out the cards. Only, I don’t think parents want to hear these truths. Thus, the old addage [sic] … if you don’t have anything nice to say … say ‘cooperative in class.’ ”
Indeed.
