Teacher fired for bumper stickers

According to Airport Kids article she was fired for one sticker,not because her car was plastered with stickers.
"Have you drugged your kid today" is the issue.
A teacher who questions Ritalin is fired.
I question Ritalin.
Its very like giving cocaine to kids.

 

We are no more a "free" country than we are a "Christian" nation.

 

How would you feel if you were a patent with a ADHD child who had to look at that bumper sticker everyday you brought your child to school and whose only hope was to take those meds in order to learn? She may have had a point that some are being over medicated or unnecessarily medicated but I'm betting there's plenty of children who are being helped or have no other choice.

Personally, I don't think she even exhibit the same level of maturity as her students.

 

I thought she was cute!

 

Teachers, like other individuals in this country, have a right to protected free speech. While the constitution protects free speech, it does not provide protection against consequences of that free speech. As an example, if you own a store and decide to fly a Nazi flag outside the store, you will get no help from the constitution when customers no longer shop at your store. Likewise with most jobs, especially those involving public service.

Like it or not, a teacher represents the community in which he teaches, and is expected to refrain from public displays that might embarrass the district. The teacher has the right to go against that expectation, but the district retains the right to terminate employment.

Moral: Your working relationship with your employer is not the same as your constitutionally protected relationship with our government.

Tom

 

Haha, thanks for these. Some of them are pretty insightful. I think firing someone over this is absolutely absurd!

 

Those are not bumper stickers since they are everywhere on that Prius.

 

I agree with this entirely. As a school board president, I would never want to dismiss a teacher over something like this. These situations are excellent opportunities to teach tolerance and discuss differing views. My earlier post was addressing the letter of the law, not the merits of this dismissal.

Tom

 

I would guess (hope) there's a lot more than just this sticker that led to the dismissal.

 

When I was in school, teachers were required to talk about the dangers of drugs. Now it seems that they are required to push them.

This teacher obviously has observed drug abuse in her classroom. The drug merchants have responded by censoring her.

 

Me too. That is usually the case with issues like this. We get a little sound bite on the news, and never hear all of the details.

I often find that I am involved with issues where the details cannot be made public due to privacy laws. It often makes the school board and administration look like a bunch of hard-asses, when if the details were known, it would make sense to the public.

Tom

 

I am not saying she should be fired, but she has gone out of her way to make her car a spectacle and a billboard for her beliefs that she parks in front of kids every day. Notice that she never said anything like "I keep my politics out of the classroom." She danced around that with statements like, "I am a good teacher" and "the car doesn't affect my teaching." I don't believe for one minute that she has NEVER introduced politics in the classroom.

I'm waiting to hear the school's argument to see what the problem was and why they fired her.

 

This was said very well. She should either drive another car to work or take off the stickers. You can't be a rolling billboard for the far left (or right if that were the case) and claim neutrality in the classroom.

 

[shooting my mouth off, again]

 

"Don't believe everything you think"

HAHA

 

That's one of my favorites. As a student of meditation, I find that a significant percentage of the "thoughts" that wander through my mindscape are erroneous.

Not everyone has figured that out yet.

 

I'm quite sure everyone here who thinks action against the schoolteacher is justified (whether firing, suspension, loss of pay, etc.) would not be so sanguine if they themselves were abruptly given a pink slip or other employment sanction as a result of their postings here in PriusChat. There isn't any difference between voicing your opinions on your bumper or on the internet (other than internet dissemination is probably a lot wider and far reaching). So give some thought to what you so casually clot these threads up with - it may be an unpleasant surprise to find out who's looking at them.

 

Sage advice. Rights and responsibilities are always closely linked. Along with freedom of speech comes the responsibility to be accountable for what you say. We might think we're anonymous and untouchable, sitting at our own computers, but it would not surprise me in the least to learn that every keystroke can be traced right back to its source, and perhaps even our current location can be tracked. Communication works both ways, especially if it's by computer.