Teacher Who Wrote of “Jerk” Pupils Says Blog Spoke Truth

The Bucks County teacher suspended from her job over profanity-laced posts on her blog says she was speaking the truth about students who are unwilling to work hard at school.

Central Bucks East High School teacher Natalie Munroe took to her blog again Saturday, explaining that she was writing a blog that only seven friends were audience to until recently.

Munroe makes no apologies for her comments, writing that in the culture of the current education system “parents don't want to hear the truth; administrators don't want us to share the truth.”

“The fact remains that every year, more and more, students are coming in less willing to work, to think, to cooperate. These are the students I was complaining about in my blog. The same way millions of Americans go home at the end of the day and complain about select coworkers or clients or other jerks they had to deal with, I came home and complained on my blog about those I had to deal with,” Munroe wrote Saturday.

Munroe told the Bucks County Courier Times that it seems there is “less accountability on students” while teachers are forced to explain everything they do.

Munroe's posts that began the scandal called some students “disengaged, lazy whiners.” One featured comments she wished she could put on report cards, including “rat-like” “dresses like a streetwalker,” and “I hear the trash company is hiring.”

In her newest blog she describes being escorted out of school by a security guard and the principal after being told that students had discovered her blog.

“I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from remarking to the stone-faced principal, ‘Um, I assure you, you don't need to walk me to the door. My 8.5 month pregnant self is hardly going to freak out on my waddle out of here!’”

Munroe believes someone dug up the blog to start trouble. Her lawyer says she never named the school and identified herself only as “Natalie M.”

District officials say Munroe could be dismissed. Attorney Steve Rovner says they have no basis for firing her.

"They do not have an Internet policy,” Rover told the Courier Times. “They specifically do not have a no-blogging policy. She did not do anything wrong that would give them cause to fire her."

Munroe said that her blogs were taken out of context and out of her 84 blogs, 60 of them had nothing to do with work or school.

“There are serious problems with our education system today--with the way that schools and school districts and students and parents take teachers who enter the education field full of life and hope and a desire to change the world and positively impact kids, and beat the life out of them and villanize them and blame them for everything--and those need to be brought to light. If this 'scandal' opens the door for that conversation, so be it,” Munroe wrote.

Munroe continued to defend her blog during an interview with NBC10.

"It seems like big business, like we're catering to the customer who is the parent and the student and they're always right," said Munroe.

"Teachers who are highly trained professionals are discounted."

Despite all the controversy, Munroe isn't backing down from her words.

"I'm not sorry for what I said, it was true," said Munroe.

"Sometimes the truth hurts." 

In the wake of the controversy, local parents, students and teachers shared their thoughts on the matter.

“It really offended a lot of people so I don’t think it’s really right for her to stand by that,” said Danny Reilly, a sophomore at Central Bucks East High School.

Danny’s mother Adrienne agrees with her son’s sentiments.

“I think she owed it to the parents and the students to apologize,” said Adrienne.

Perhaps the most poignant criticism came from someone who was all too familiar with Natalie’s frustrations.

“Is it frustrating, the profession? Yes, but so is every other profession,” said a teacher who wanted to remain anonymous.

“We are held to that higher standard,” continued the teacher.

“If we want to be held to that higher standard in society then we have to act toward that higher standard as well.”
 

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