hang the president?

[Tedob1]

Rita Bianco, Parent: "Children should know their president and their first lady!"

Parents expressing outrage after a teacher is kicked out of her public school for hanging a picture of President Bush next to pictures of other presidents in her classroom.

Shiba Pillai-Diaz, Teacher: "It happened on a small bulletin board near the American flag and also with a poster of the Declaration of Independence."

This is Crossroads South Middle School in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey. On Thursday, there was a back-to-school night for parents of students. Veteran English teacher Shiba Pillai-Diaz says she was shocked when three parents confronted her. The three, insisting the teacher either add John Kerry's photo to the montage of presidents or remove the Bush photo. When Pillai-Diaz refused, she says the school's vice-principal threatened her job which is an act that has parents here fuming.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/WAB...olteacher.html

lets see what the anti christian libertys union does about this!

[kurt_der_koenig]

insisting the teacher either add John Kerry's

wtf! He isn't even president! She was just adding a simple picture of Mr.Bushy. No matter "how bad" one thinks he is or has done he has a historical right to be put in line with the others.

[moxnix]

Thats just plain ignorent. Whether you like him or not GW Bush is a seated president, while J Kerry is just a want to be right now.

I can remember displays like that when I was in school four or five decades ago. They never included the Want_To_Be's either.

[debwalin]

Even as a Kerry supporter, I find this ignorant. As mentioned before, until Mr. Kerry is elected, he has no right to be "hung" with other presidents.

[CXGJarrod]

Quite ignorant. The picture does not show it next to other presidents (but the picture is a close up of the picture of Bush), but as long as it was next to the other presidents and didnt say anything like "Bush is best" the teacher did not do anythign wrong in my opinion.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/features..._picture7.html

[debwalin]

It does look like it was separated from the other presidents...however, he is the current president of the US, not someone who was at some point in time president. I can make a case for having it set apart from other presidents. It's just stupidity, IMO, for the parents to have made such a stink about something that was, despite the teachers personal political leanings, completely innocent as far as I can tell.

[Negative]

I only found this now, but on the same day of Tedob's article, an official District Statement was released by the Superintendent of the School district. Read it here.

Here are some excerpts:

- As the issue grew in intensity, the teacher herself chose to remove the stuffed elephant because of student comments. In the ensuing days, parents expressed increasing concern about the teacher's classroom behavior, the misuse of classroom instructional time and the personal bulletin board.

- On Friday morning, October 1, Ms. Pillai-Diaz was directed by the Assistant Principal to remove bulletin board materials because they were being viewed as contributing to an ongoing disruption of the teaching-learning environment. She refused. She then met with the Principal who repeated the directive. At this point, Ms. Pillai-Diaz abruptly left the building, abandoning her post of duty and her classroom responsibilities.

So not only did she not got fired, she also abandonded her "post of duty" (something she should be fired for imo)... and of course the matter was a little more complicated than what ABC wants you to believe...

[debwalin]

Ms. Pillai-Diaz is a new Language Arts teacher in the South Brunswick Schools. Recently, the school administration began receiving complaints from students and parents that Ms. Pillai-Diaz was using her position, classroom and teaching time to engage in partisan politics. Students reported that she had made statements which denigrated one party over the other. The conversations included Ms. Pillai-Diaz telling some students who offered opinions contrary to her statements, that she was “glad they were not old enough to vote.” Other comments to students, including such statements as, “you should be ashamed to be a Democrat” have been verified through student interviews.

Quite a different story than the one reported earlier, eh?

And Neg, haven't you learned to sleep when the babies sleep yet?!

[RoadClosed]

I had some very liberal and very conservative teachers. They would all present their own point of views occasionally. That was that, today we live in a world full of people who cannot accept ANYTHING beyond their own selfish bias and hatred for the OTHER side of everything.

I would go home tell mom what I heard and we would have discussions on it. AMAZING.

[hiddeninclouds]

Personally, i'd love to well, lets call it "not be nice" to W, but he is a part of history and does belong in a classroom, damn fools