“i’m not a teacher — i’m a warden for future criminals.”
--Jennifer O'Brien
This from NorthJersey.com:
The Paterson teacher who called her first-grade students “future criminals” in a Facebook post should lose her tenured job, an administrative law judge has ruled.
In a decision made public Tuesday, Judge Ellen Bass said Jennifer O’Brien’s conduct would be “inexcusable” in any district, but especially in a city burdened by poverty and violence.
“O’Brien has demonstrated a complete lack of sensitivity to the world in which her students live,” the judge wrote. “The sentiment that a 6-year-old will not rise above the criminal element that surrounds him cuts right to the bone.”
Bass also noted that O’Brien, who lives in Elmwood Park, did not express genuine remorse at an August hearing in Newark.
“I came away with the impression that O’Brien remained somewhat befuddled by the commotion she had created,” the judge wrote.
Bass said that with sensitivity training, O’Brien — a Paterson teacher since 1998 — could return to a public school classroom, but not in Paterson, due to her damaged relationship with the community.
The judge also found that the district’s need to efficiently operate its schools outweighed O’Brien’s right to free speech.
“In a public education setting, thoughtless words can destroy the partnership between home and school that is essential to the mission of the schools,” she wrote.
The state education commissioner has 45 days to accept, reject or modify the judge’s recommendations.
O’Brien’s lawyer, Nancy Oxfeld, said she would appeal to the commissioner to let O’Brien keep her job. Oxfeld said O’Brien’s words had been misinterpreted and that she never thought her students would become criminals. The teacher was concerned about a few students’ behavior and believed they needed help, the lawyer said.
“The judge found Ms. O’Brien had somehow ruined her relationship with the Paterson community such that she could never go back to teach there,” Oxfeld said. “There were a few incidents and a lot of news trucks for one day. We don’t think there would be any problem at all.”
O’Brien could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. At her hearing, she said she wrote the post in exasperation because six or seven unruly students kept disrupting her lessons, and one boy had hit her.
Paterson district spokeswoman Terry Corallo said the district welcomed the judge’s ruling.
“Providing for a safe and caring environment at all of our schools is one of this district’s top priorities,” she said. “This particular case required immediate action and we are pleased with the judge’s decision.”
In March, O’Brien posted to about 300 friends that “i’m not a teacher — i’m a warden for future criminals.” The post shot through the Internet and grabbed headlines nationwide.
7 comments:
WOW!! constitutional rights thrown out the window for teachers of students for whom the courts have ruled the contrary - "The judge also found that the district’s need to efficiently operate its schools outweighed O’Brien’s right to free speech".
I hate to think of all the latitude some schools could take when identifying "efficient operation" as the justification for prohibiting the bill of rights for teachers.
I wonder how many teachers would have a job if a negative comment to a group of friends about unnamed students would result in termination? Thank goodness we don't ever get frustrated and say something sarcastic about students to coworkers or friends.
On a similar note, I wonder if that is the problem with our judicial system. Too many judges and lawyers "thoughtless words (have) destroy(ed) the partnership between (citizens and courts) that is essential to the mission (justice)." Wonder how many baristers are going to be disbared for hurtful public comments about those in civil and criminal proceedings? Thank goodness that never happens either.
Actually, she could probably do a little academic research and statistically prove that her comment was not a frustated experession of opinion but one of fact in regard to her students becoming future criminals. No different than the "facts" which schools of "city burdened by poverty and violence" use as their excuse for non performance.
Let's face it, it may have been poor professional judgement to post the comment to her friends. It was intended for a limited audience of individuals she knew, not public distribution. Would any of us want letters or comments intended for view only by friends, suddenly to be come the basis for our employment. Bottomline is it wasn't illegal or immoral and certainly no where in the ball park when it comes to trampling on free speech rights.
Hummm. Maybe.
But I tend to believe that free speech is not free.
The court has limited speech on several occasions and it balances competing rights against one another all the time. I heard Justice Steven Breyer speak about this issue recently, citing the famous you-can't-shout-"fire"-in-a-crowded-theater argument, and a handful of others.
I agree with you that Ms O'Brien suffered from a lapse of professional judgment. But I also think we're a little past the time when folks believe that only their friends will see their Facebook posts. We teacher our teacher candidates not to put anything in print they would not want on the front page of the newspaper (or that would embarrass them if their grandmother saw it).
For the free speech argument to prevail, wouldn't the court have to agree that teachers could say almost anything, even worse than O'Brien, about their students and parents, administrators....
I suspect school folks know that districts can enforce rules against some kinds of speech and maybe that helps explain why so many folks post anonymously around here.
I don't post anything embarrassing therefore I have had to remove Fayette County Public Schools as my employer on FB.
I agree that in this era, one should be more conscious about the unlimited exposure of anything which is electronically communicated. Even before electronic media/communications, teachers have had to recognize that their identity as an educator, like that of a clergy member, does not end as they exit the schoolhouse door. It is unfortunate that this teacher made the comment.
At the same time, the punishment hardly fits the transgression. I think if one could review verbal misteps by most educators, in front of students no less, termination was rarely the disciplinary consequence. I imagine that there was a fair amount of public and political preasure to make an example of the teacher in this "city burdened by poverty and violence."
To me the court seems somewhat over the top by playing up the angle:
"In a public education setting, thoughtless words can destroy the partnership between home and school that is essential to the mission of the schools."
Not to deminish the truth of the statement, but I would declare that many politicians, editorialists and public statements by non teachers have been far more derogatory, negative, inaccurate and instrumental in harming partenerships than this one frustrated teacher's comments point out don't actually exist in many cases. Her comment did not create the current misbehavior, it prevailed prior to her comment.
Certainly the courts have placed some limits on free speech but I don't think this really meets either the safety or hate criteria the courts have established as limiting free speech.
This court's justification was that the comments "demonstrated a lack of sensativity" which is not a criteria for placing limitation on speech. If a gym teacher were to tell an overweight student that he was "fat" and needed to lose some weight or he was going to die from obesity as a result, it would certainly be insensative, but if it were true (not slanderous or nor inaccurate) would we fire the teacher? Are the students misbehaving in her class and keeping her from teaching and what is the incarsaration rates of of this "city burdened by poverty and violence?" Insensative but true?
I don't like to play the "what if game but, if the teacher had instead said, "I can not achieve my instructional objectives or fullfill my role as an educator due to some of my students' ongoing misbehavior which I believe if it continues will result in their unsuccessful transition adult life." Would this be limited also?
Maybe the school's stronger position would have been to take a FERPA or confidentiality angle since she probably only has about 20 kids in her class and has indirectly communicated student behavior about a very defined group of kids to individuals who have not right to that knowledge. To me that would have been much more direct and in line with specific district policies than trying to fire her for being publicly "insensative". (That's probably would not have appeased local constituencies and why I imagine the later approach was taken, who knows?)
Wonder if the district trained teachers about appropriate use of social media and if there is a district policy that covers this? Most districts still don't even have policies that give guidance about electronic communication between teachers and students, much less facebook posting to your friends.
If you are going hold folks accountable these days and you are claiming facebook comments are work related communication territory, then you better have a policy and have trained your people about what is and isn't acceptable. Just firing someone because they are insensative sounds like pretty shakey ground. The criteria of what is and isn't insensative lends itself to a great deal of interpretation. Next thing you know putting :( frowny faces on emails will get you terminated for hurting someone's feelings.
Mrs. O’Brien needs to understand that Facebook is not a place where she can openly express her opinions about her students. As a teacher she must understand that her words were detrimental to the students in her class and because of this lack of judgment she will more than likely lose her job. Being a teacher automatically puts you as a role model and with these harmful words she degraded the students and fell to the society’s viewpoints on that particular community.
However frustrated Mrs. O’Brien might have been, she should have had better judgment than to post that negative status. This shows the students that Mrs. O’Brien didn’t believe in them and that they were not going to succeed in life. If I were a parent, this news would be shocking and I would be very disappointed in the teacher and expect her to be fired. As a future teacher, this news is very shocking and I hope that Mrs. O’Brien has learned her lesson and many other teachers can also learn from this horrible incident.
Mrs. O’Brien needs to understand that Facebook is not a place where she can openly express her opinions about her students. As a teacher she must understand that her words were detrimental to the students in her class and because of this lack of judgment she will more than likely lose her job. Being a teacher automatically puts you as a role model and with these harmful words she degraded the students and fell to the society’s viewpoints on that particular community.
However frustrated Mrs. O’Brien might have been, she should have had better judgment than to post that negative status. This shows the students that Mrs. O’Brien didn’t believe in them and that they were not going to succeed in life. If I were a parent, this news would be shocking and I would be very disappointed in the teacher and expect her to be fired. As a future teacher, this news is very shocking and I hope that Mrs. O’Brien has learned her lesson and many other teachers can also learn from this horrible incident.
Post a Comment