NJ 1st-Grade Teacher Suspended Over Facebook Posts

Teacher wrote that she felt like a "warden" for future criminals.

A few days after a Pennsylvania school district proposed a social-media ban for all teachers, a New Jersey school district has suspended a first-grade teacher after parents complained that she had posted derogatory comments about her students on her Facebook page.

The teacher was removed from the classroom this week after several parents who saw the posts came to Paterson School 21 and asked that their children be removed from her class. Her name was not disclosed.

The Record newspaper reports that the teacher said she felt like “a warden” and referred to her 6- and 7-year-old students as future criminals.

Superintendent Donnie Evans confirmed the suspension on Friday and said the district was investigating. But he declined further comment because it was a personnel matter.

In the wake of a Bucks County teacher blogging controversy, North Penn School District considers a policy that would ban teachers from almost any kind of conversation about their jobs to the public and any kind of conversation about their personal lives to their students.

The policy basically states that teachers cannot blog, post on Facebook, tweet, e-mail, text, talk on the phone or in person about your personal life to students or your teaching life to the public.

School Board President Vincent Sherpinsky pointed out that the proposal  limits teachers First Amendment rights.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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