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Just when you thought the world couldn't get any crazier...

This was linked off Drudge earlier today.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/WAB...olteacher.html

Quote:

Middle School Teacher In Trouble Over Presidential Photo?

By Ken Rosato

(Monmouth Junction-WABC, October 3, 2004) — You might say it is a symbol of the Great American Divide, a teacher putting up a picture of President Bush in the classroom. Some say it is partisanship while others say it is patriotism.

Rita Bianco, Parent: "Children should know their president and their first lady!"

Parents expressing outrage after a teacher is kicked out of her public school for hanging a picture of President Bush next to pictures of other presidents in her classroom.

This is Crossroads South Middle School in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey. On Thursday, there was a back-to-school night for parents of students. Veteran English teacher Shiba Pillai-Diaz says she was shocked when three parents confronted her. The three, insisting the teacher either add John Kerry's photo to the montage of presidents or remove the Bush photo. When Pillai-Diaz refused, she says the school's vice-principal threatened her job which is an act that has parents here fuming.

Pillai-Diaz ultimately removed the entire bulletin board and says School Principal Jim Warfel told her she disrupted the school with her "inflammatory politics". She says he then ordered her out of the building. While she says she is a Bush supporter in her personal life, Pillai-Diaz says she keeps politics out of the classroom.

Shiba Pillai-Diaz, Teacher: "There was no political intent, nor was there any political content in that photograph nor on the bulletin board."

School officials would not talk on camera but insist nobody here has been fired. To that, Ms. Pillai-Diaz asks what does it mean then when your boss asks you to hand over the keys and kicks you out of the building? She also says she is not sure if she'll be returning to school tomorrow.

I can't believe the principal would do such a thing. Is anyone else as outraged as I am? I mean... come on, put up a picture of Kerry also? It was a list of Presidents for goodness sakes. It's shocking enough to have 3 parents as shortsighted, but for the school's administration to take the teacher's keys... wow.

Almost posted this. But somehow I knew it would show up here first. President Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He legitimately deserves a place on the history board next to the other 42 Presidents. John Kerry is a Senator. He would need a place on the board next to the other 99 current Senators. Those parents need to get their own politics out of the classroom arena and leave that poor teacher alone.

Yeah, it is stupid to protest that picture, he is the President (well, not a democratically elected Prez, but that is a whole different story) but let's be fair here: there are liberal morons, and conservative morons. Remember a couple weeks ago, the story about the Bush supporter who fired a worker for having a Kerry/Edwards sticker on her car? Let us not make more of this than it is, an isolated incident of idiocy.

Edited for grammar...

Had the picture not been posted during an election year, it may not have made as big an issue. People are just too wacko at times to try to figure out.

Glad to see the fair-minded responses that are posted here.
Thanks.

So many idiots. If she was a Kerry supporter, they probably would have called her a traitor.

I have a feeling that there's more behind this story. We have the 'what', but the 'how' is probably also important.

OK, just did a Google News search, here's a longer version: Home News Tribune | Teacher defends pic of president

Quote:

Teacher defends pic of president

Published in the Home News Tribune 10/03/04
By JERRY BARCA
and DINA GUIRGUIS
STAFF WRITERS

SOUTH BRUNSWICK: A middle school teacher walked out on her job after being asked to remove a picture of the president from her classroom, she said.

Though she says he has not resigned, the teacher's situation at Crossroads Middle School South is not yet resolved.

Shiba Pillai-Diaz's walkout involved the local police, left school officials mum and appalled the local Republican Party.

Pillai-Diaz, 33, a volunteer with the Bush campaign and an English teacher, has had a publicity picture of the First Couple hanging in her classroom since the start of the school year, she said.

The photo became an issue last week.

Parents e-mailed an assistant principal accusing Pillai-Diaz of suppressing free speech because the teacher refused to talk to pupils about why the color photo hung in the room.

"Students said, 'You like George Bush? He's killed people,' " Pillai-Diaz said. "As a rule I don't talk about my politics in the classroom."

According to Pillai-Diaz, Assistant Principal Mark Daniels said he had no problem with the photo, which hung next to posters of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. But Daniels told the teacher she should address questions that arose because of the photo.

"He wasn't giving me the power to direct conversation in my classroom," said Pillai-Diaz, who regarded the picture just as an image of the current president.

Thursday, at back-to-school night, the controversy exploded after a parent asked why the picture was up, Pillai-Diaz said.

"The way she asked was a political assault," the teacher said.

Then the parents started their own debate about the picture, and one mother stormed out of the classroom, Pillai-Diaz said.

Friday morning, the teacher, who is in her sixth year of teaching and her first in South Brunswick, was called into the assistant principal's office. Daniels told her to remove the picture, Pillai-Diaz said.

"He said, 'If you care about your job, you'll take the picture down,' " she said.

Pillai-Diaz told the assistant principal to take the picture down himself. Then she sought Principal Jim Warfel, who gave her an upbraiding.

"He said, 'You've caused more disruption, hatred and anger than anyone I've ever known,' " she said.

The teacher said the principal told her to "get out," so she left and headed to the South Brunswick Police Department.

An officer accompanied Pillai-Diaz back to the school because she said she feared for her safety when she went to collect her belongings, police said.

Once Pillai-Diaz felt safe at the school the officer left, police said.

In the school, Pillai-Diaz had a two-hour meeting with Superintendent Gary McCartney and a representative from the teachers' union. Both parties told the teacher she would lose any fight she would try to start about the picture, Pillai-Diaz said.

"They weren't interested in the substance of the issue," she said.

The superintendent said no one has resigned, been fired or suspended. McCartney would not discuss the incident, calling it a personnel matter.

When reached Friday night, Sylvia Lee, president of the teachers' union, said no teacher had been fired and she didn't know about the incident. Lee did not return multiple telephone messages left for her yesterday.

Board of Education President Robert Long declined to comment on the incident, calling it a personnel matter.

He did say he could not find any district policy addressing the presence of pictures of presidents in classrooms. He said it would be too early to tell whether the incident merited a policy change.

"We don't want to develop a policy for something that is not needed," Long said. "Whatever the facts may be, it is something we will certainly take a look at if needed."

Democrats dominate South Brunswick's government, holding the Mayor's Office and three of the four council seats.

Of the 40,000 people living in the township, about 5,000 are registered Republicans. Registered Democrats outnumber them by a 3-to-2 margin, said local Republican officials.

"It's horrible that a teacher was asked to take down a picture of the president of the United States," said Dawn Smith, chair of the local Republican Committee. "It's unconscionable."

Smith said she would expect the same procedures to apply whether it was President Bush or former President Clinton.

"When did we stop honoring our country's leaders?" Smith asked.

Pillai Diaz said the only way school officials may have known she was a Republican is because she could not attend a meeting with teachers on the day she volunteered at the Republican National Convention in New York.

"I never once said 'I am a Republican' or 'I support the president,' " Pillai-Diaz said.

Pillai-Diaz turned in the keys to her classroom on Friday. She packed up the picture and her classroom decorations, taking them with her when she left. She is unsure about her future employment, but said she is supposed to speak with district officials about it tomorrow.

"My ultimate goal is to teach," she said.

I have no idea if either paper has a standard editoral slant on their reporting. But the teacher sounds like she might be a problem; the principal said 'You've caused more disruption, hatred and anger than anyone I've ever known'. That's not just posting a picture.

I think it's silly to be reprimanded for posting a picture of the president in a classroom. That being said, i find it difficult to believe that a volunteer for either campaign, who knows what is at stake in the coming election, could act, in class, with complete disregard for his/her political goals outside of class.

There must be a lot more to the story than this, especially reguarding the teacher's history with the school.

Also, if there was an argument in a classroom, involving parents, over a picture (be it of anything), it does not seem unreasonable for the principal to ask the teacher to take it down.

Interesting that the second story doesn't mention the display of all 43 presidents that the first story talks about. Not that it really matters, it's perfectly reasonable to hang a picture of the current president in a classroom. I'm sure there's more to this story than what's given here. If anything this shows the unreasonable amount of power that parents have over the teachers. It's almost impossible to give a student a failing grade if the parents protest, meanwhile our education system suffers.

It's interesting to read the two stories and see how they differ. The first story gives the appearance that it was a simple story of a teacher not allowed to post a photo of a president. This obviously caused outrage. The second story is more anecdotal but includes more details.

This shows, more than anything else, to me, how what we know is determined by what the media sees fit to let us know.

Quote:

Following a meeting later Friday with Schools Superintendent Gary P. McCartney, who told her she was not fired, she had intended to return to teach yesterday.

However, she changed her plans yesterday and hired an attorney to plead her case after McCartney distributed to district staff and the media his version of events.

His statement, he explained, was in response to "her aggressive efforts to get herself national media attention."

Pallai-Diaz told her story Sunday on "Good Morning America," on ABC, and later, she appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor" on the Fox News Network.

The problem was never the picture, according to McCartney, ". . . but rather a zealous misuse of seventh and eighth grade student instructional time."

According to his version of events, she once told students she was "glad they were not old enough to vote." She has also been accused of telling a student, "You should be ashamed to be a Democrat."

Pillai-Diaz denied saying anything of the sort. "You would have to be incredibly stupid to say those things to a student," she said, adding "I don't talk politics with the kids."

She explained she changed her mind about returning to the classroom because of the prejudicial nature of McCartney's version of events. "I don't how I can go to that school again after he distorted everything and sent (the letter) to all the teachers," she said, while waiting to tape her interview in the New York studio of "The O'Reilly Factor."

Interviewed yesterday, McCart-ney said if Pillai-Diaz stopped making political statements he would allow her to return to the classroom and even return the picture to the bulletin board, telling her, "I encourage you to do so."

McCartney said parents had e-mailed Principal Jim Warfel, concerned about the nature of Pillai-Diaz's passion for politics in the classroom.

The controversy was elevated Thursday on back-to-school night, when three parents got into a heated political discussion with Pillai-Diaz.

She said yesterday the principal told her to "get out," which she interpreted as being fired. "When the principal says get your stuff and get out, what would you think?" she said.

After the confrontation with the principal she left the building. She returned to retrieve her belongings, accompanied by a police escort, which she requested for her own safety. She was joined by a union representative and they discussed the incident for two hours with McCartney and Warfel <a href="http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,1070288,00.html">http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,1070288,00.html</a>.

A publicity photo of Bush and the first lady, displayed on a curriculum bulletin
board does not compare in appropriateness to uniform "face shots" of past
presidents displayed in a classroom for instructional purposes.

The teacher appears to be a publicity hound who has acted to inflame this
situation, by going to the local police for a protection escort, appearing on
national TV so quickly to publicize this and inflame the disagreement further,
and by hiring a lawyer instead of seeking representation from her union.

This is not worth a thread here. I hesitated to post anything because this
is nonsense and not about posting presidents' pictures in a classroom.
The photo she posted seems like the type commonly issued by the RNC
in fundraising mailers, but I can't be sure, now.

all three of these articles have a different spin on editorial slant and don't correlate well in some of the most significant details...

I'm no friend of Bush, but that is ridiculous.

Personally, I don't like the "personality cult" thingey of hanging pictures of political leaders (especially live ones) around the place, but that's just my opinion.

If they have a bulletin board with all the presidents, then Bush should be up there.

Stupid.

Mr Mephisto

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Mephisto

If they have a bulletin board with all the presidents, then Bush should be up there.

Read the second article that was posted by redlemon. It says the photo was "hung next to posters of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence." I heard the story on Fox News and they described it the same way and it was specifically pointed out that the pictures of other presidents were not posted next to Bush's.

I think host is correct. This lady looks to be a lying troublemaker who tried to bring her personal politics into the classroom and then displayed a persecution complex when she got called on it. I don't blame the school administration at all in this instance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by irateplatypus

all three of these articles have a different spin on editorial slant and don't correlate well in some of the most significant details...

Agreed.

Somebody is lying, but it is impossible at this distance to tell who.

Story make head hurt. This is ridiculous, I know for a fact that every single one of the social studies teachers at my former high school has a picture of George and Laura Bush. I also know a couple other teachers not in that department have a picture of the President and/or First Lady. This is sheer lunacy.