Teacher fired after assigning violent math problems to third graders

I apologize. I thought you meant THIS case.
Going by reading the article, I hadn't seen any parental hysteria.

I am a parent. I would have brought this to the attention of the administration. I feel it's inappropriate for the children as third graders.
I would not have been hysterical and I would not have asked for the teacher to be fired.
But, what they decided to do with the information would be out of my hands.

I am talking about THIS case. Somebody called the press. I doubt it was the principal; although it's possible, I doubt the CEO fired the teacher unless s/he was getting heat from somewhere.

And you can find any number of posts upstream saying the teacher in question not only made a mistake, but is obviously a hopelessly incompetent educator and had to be fired. That is the hysteria to which I referred.

Because another way to look at it is that this teacher was still trying to find creative ways to interest his students. Yes, he overreached in this example, but at least he wasn't just passing uneducated kids on to the next grade level.
 
Maybe I can help you understand the wipe situation. They need both types. So they ask boys to bring one type and girls to bring another type.
It's not that the genders use different types.
One type is used for the desks and the other type is used for dirty hands.

Another example of this that I have seen is...
Boys... Gallon sized zipper bags
Girls... Quart sized zipper bags

And as far as the erasers go, the large pink ones work the best on paper without ripping it. A large pink eraser was on my child's list all through elementary. Same goes for fiskars scissors, elmers school glue, and crayola crayons. They just work better.

I can see labeling personal items like scissors, notebooks, pencil boxes...
But no need to label things that will be used for the class as a whole such as paper towels, wipes, zipper bags, tissues....

JMO

Am I the only one who finds it ridiculous that schools don't have budgets that cover essential supplies and have to resort to such schemes to get wipes and paper towels from students?

Please note: I haven't had a kid in public school since the early 1980s.
 
Idk
I'm in the #1 school system in the state. We have our own community school system. There is no lack of money available because our property taxes are OUTRAGEOUS, but, parents provide school supplies.
Always have.

The school system pays for buildings, utilities, salaries.... But we pay for supplies.
 
Idk
I'm in the #1 school system in the state. We have our own community school system. There is no lack of money available because our property taxes are OUTRAGEOUS, but, parents provide school supplies.
Always have.

The school system pays for buildings, utilities, salaries.... But we pay for supplies.

I understand that kids bring the things that they alone will use, including pencils and erasers. But coming up with schemes in order to get essential, shared supplies strikes me as a waste of teacher time.

Granted I taught at a university. Students brought their own notebooks and had to pay for required books. But I didn't have to make each one bring a roll of toilet paper to keep the restrooms stocked. :rolleyes:
 
Maybe I can help you understand the wipe situation. They need both types. So they ask boys to bring one type and girls to bring another type.
It's not that the genders use different types.
One type is used for the desks and the other type is used for dirty hands.

Another example of this that I have seen is...
Boys... Gallon sized zipper bags
Girls... Quart sized zipper bags

And as far as the erasers go, the large pink ones work the best on paper without ripping it. A large pink eraser was on my child's list all through elementary. Same goes for fiskars scissors, elmers school glue, and crayola crayons. They just work better.

I can see labeling personal items like scissors, notebooks, pencil boxes...
But no need to label things that will be used for the class as a whole such as paper towels, wipes, zipper bags, tissues....

JMO

So it's communal? What's the point if every student has to bring it in anyway? :waitasec:

Over here, in my experience, kids have to have their own labeled tissues, hand sanitizer, wipes, sunscreen etc to prevent cross contamination.
Same reason that all of their stationary items should be labelled and only used by that child.
Kids that are sent to school sick can still spread their germs, but it's a good idea to help minimize that by not sharing items.

JMO
 
Then you haven't read the parents on this thread. I've said and continue to say that while the teacher was wrong, firing him is an overreaction.

You may well be right that in this case, administrators overreacted before parents even got the chance. If so, it's because administrators are well acquainted with how parents are likely to react. It doesn't change my basic point.

(Kimberly, if some parent didn't raise an uproar, how did the media get the story in the first place? It's not like today's media outlets have the staff to have a regular reporter on the "elementary school beat".)
Actually, the Contra Costa Times does. I've met a couple of these reporters at the school board meetings and know them by name.
 
Actually, the Contra Costa Times does. I've met a couple of these reporters at the school board meetings and know them by name.

Okay, but the point is the issue wouldn't have reached a school board meeting unless parents were complaining.
 
Okay, but the point is the issue wouldn't have reached a school board meeting unless parents were complaining.

I don't think that's true at all.
Things go before school boards all the time that have nothing to do with parental complaints.
 
So it's communal? What's the point if every student has to bring it in anyway? :waitasec:

Over here, in my experience, kids have to have their own labeled tissues, hand sanitizer, wipes, sunscreen etc to prevent cross contamination.
Same reason that all of their stationary items should be labelled and only used by that child.
Kids that are sent to school sick can still spread their germs, but it's a good idea to help minimize that by not sharing items.

JMO

In my experience, a box of Kleenex is kept on the teacher's desk. Not every child has a box. Same goes with sanitizer.
Containers of wipes are passed around to clean desks.
Same with zipper bags. They are kept in a cabinet and given out when needed.

There's not much chance of cross contamination with sanitizer or Clorox wipes. No more than touching anything in the classroom.

I guess things are done differently in different schools.

I don't find the school's supply list odd at all. It's very similar to ours.
 
After the station broke the story in a previous report, the school responded with the following statement:

"Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. Center City PCS does not condone violence. We take this issue seriously and are looking into why these problems might have been sent home to the Third Grade students on our Trinidad Campus. The Singapore Math textbooks we use in our schools do not have any math problems of this nature."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/teacher-fired-for-giving-_n_1322173.html

Huh? 'Thank you for bringing this to our attention'? :confused:
I'm really confused as to how all this went down. If they're unsure about how these maths problems were sent home, then why did they already sack the teacher?

As to her comment about the Singapore Math, that was probably my biggest issue with the homeschooling-paradise site. It claimed to be 'Singapore Math' but doesn't fit the definition as I understand it.

I keep thinking of the parents who said that the teacher would never have assigned this work to the students unless it was ordered, but if I had been wrongly fired and accused of doing something I didn't do, I would at least want that statement out there. But we haven't heard from the teacher at all.

I understand that in public schools they are not allowed to comment in the media, but a charter school isn't subject to the same rules. But I guess it could have been in the contract.

I think it's possible the work was ordered by someone else, because of all the odd comments that have been made by the school. Something's just not right.

But teachers do need to do more than just hand out printed homework sheets.
It's shocking how many errors there are even in the approved worksheet text books. I had to point out several to my DD's teacher when she was in the 2nd grade.

JMO
 
I don't think that's true at all.
Things go before school boards all the time that have nothing to do with parental complaints.

Okay, what's your scenario then? There is sufficient heat in response to a teacher's assignment that the teacher is not just reprimanded, but fired. And you think that happened without any complaints from parents.

How?
 
Okay, what's your scenario then? There is sufficient heat in response to a teacher's assignment that the teacher is not just reprimanded, but fired. And you think that happened without any complaints from parents.

How?

Like I said before, a parent could have brought it to their attention and they brought it before the board.

In your posts, you seem to assume several angry parents complained and demanded something be done.

We don't know that.

That's the point I'm trying to make.

There are several scenarios that could have played out. Some of those scenarios would not involve parents at all OR just 1.

JMO
 
These are gross, yet they seem totally consonant with a cultural trend for kids to be into gore, violence, and death. Like the zombie craze, skulls on kids' clothing, candy that looks like blood, guts, bugs, or body parts. Heck, even when I was a kid, a million years ago, they had "Garbage Pail Kids" cards. And there are the Edward Gorey cartoons, and the Lemony Snicket books, and on and on.
 
Like I said before, a parent could have brought it to their attention and they brought it before the board.

In your posts, you seem to assume several angry parents complained and demanded something be done.

We don't know that.

That's the point I'm trying to make.

There are several scenarios that could have played out. Some of those scenarios would not involve parents at all OR just 1.

JMO

I'm sorry, but I don't see a single scenario where this gets to the media (before it gets to the principal) without the involvement of at least one overreacting parent.

And I will repeat that we have several examples in this very thread of parents reacting to the idea that their third grader might receive an assignment with cartoon references to vampires, cannibals and aliens.
 
I'm sorry, but I don't see a single scenario where this gets to the media (before it gets to the principal) without the involvement of at least one overreacting parent.

And I will repeat that we have several examples in this very thread of parents reacting to the idea that their third grader might receive an assignment with cartoon references to vampires, cannibals and aliens.

I can think of a scenario that doesn't involve any overreacting parents after watching the video and article posted before the teacher got fired.

They say that a concerned person gave the copy to the media. Not a concerned parent. I find that very interesting.

And "Sources tell 9 News Now that the teacher did not want to use them, but was told she must".

What if the 'concerned person' and the 'source' is actually the teacher?

If she had voiced her concerns at the school over the questions and they blew her off, maybe she went to the media with the very best intentions for her students to make sure the school didn't continue and just sweep it under the rug.
If this is how it played out then it's possible the real reason she was fired was for going to the media. I believe it was the very next day that she was fired.

It would explain the schools reply to the media of "Thank you for bringing this to our attention' . (My interpretation in this scenario: 'That ***** went over our heads, and she's gonna pay'!)

Normally when angry, overreacting parents go to the media, they make sure they get their camera time. We haven't seen that here.

If it was the teacher who took it to the media then I LOVE her and want to give her a big hug for putting ethics and her students ahead of her job.

It's just a theory of course, but everything falls into place and makes more sense this way.

"The Singapore Math textbooks we use in our schools do not have any math problems of this nature."

I would love someone to check out the school to see just how many Singapore math textbooks they really have or if someone thought they could cut corners and save money by downloading what claimed to be Singapore math from a free site.

Here's the video:

http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=193679

JMO, MOO and all that jazz.
 
Like I said before, a parent could have brought it to their attention and they brought it before the board.

In your posts, you seem to assume several angry parents complained and demanded something be done.

We don't know that.

That's the point I'm trying to make.

There are several scenarios that could have played out. Some of those scenarios would not involve parents at all OR just 1.

JMO

No. I'm aware that one angry parent + one cowardly principal are enough to end the career of even the best educator. (I'm not assuming the teacher here was the "best". I'm just saying.)

But my original reference to parental hysteria applied as much to posters on this thread as to parents at the school.
 
No. I'm aware that one angry parent + one cowardly principal are enough to end the career of even the best educator. (I'm not assuming the teacher here was the "best". I'm just saying.)

But my original reference to parental hysteria applied as much to posters on this thread as to parents at the school.

BBM- I find that pretty offensive, but I respect your opinion.

As parents it's our responsibility and choice to decide what is acceptable or unacceptable for our children. And I don't think that finding these math problems offensive makes us hysterical parents. It's just our opinion.

Ultimately, that is the issue. The questions are offensive to us. And if we find them offensive, then why would we want our kids exposed to it?

I decide what my kids watch on Tv.They don't play violent video games. They play fun games, but every single one of them is educational (not that they are aware of that) and none of them resort to shock or gross-out tactics.

They don't read trashy books, no matter how popular or 'fun' they may be.

Last year my daughters teacher had them reading the book 'the day my butt went psycho'. Plenty of people think it's a perfectly fine book for kids to read, but I don't. My child. My choice.

Firstly it wasn't written for that age group, and secondly it was just plain dumb. I complained, and nothing was done at first. Then the teacher got the kids to draw pictures of exploding butts (great education there!)
At the time the book was being read they discovered that the boys from that class (only that class) started peeing all over each other in the toilets, and had started peeking over toilet stalls to watch real butt explosions , and they finally stopped with the book.

I wasn't hysterical- I was right! The book was not appropriate for them, and had a negative influence on their behaviour at school....which they were all punished for.
 
I don't think anyone has said the math problems were appropriate. But why fire the teacher over it when they could have reprimanded the teacher or retrained the teacher? It makes no sense. Your example of the "exploding butt" book doesn't seem any more appropriate than the math problems, and yet I don't see that anything was done to that teacher at all.
 
It's not a parent's choice if a teacher is fired or not.
It's the administration's.

As parents, all we can do is make sure the administration knows about things that we feel is not appropriate for our children.

It's our right.
 
I feel the math problems are not appropriate for 3rd Graders and are quite disturbing. With that said, I think that firing the teacher was overkill UNLESS the school has had problems with him/her in the past. We don't know that. And like Kimberly said above, whether the teacher was fired or not is not the parents choice, but the administrations.

As far as the school board, things are brought up all the time. Nothing says a hysterical parent brought it to the school boards attention. The fact that a teacher was fired is reason enough for the school board to want to discuss it. I'm sure the principal had to turn in to the board that a teacher was fired.

Local news often cover school board meetings. That's how it may have been able to hit the media. Although town gossip may have been how it hit the media too.
 

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