Teacher Fired For Spending A Quarter At School

Edie Oats, WI--First-year teacher Susan Potts was placed on unpaid administrative leave pending termination from her position at Forked Tongue Middle School for paying for a lunchtime snack with a Massachusetts state quarter.

"We have a strict zero-tolerance policy regarding firearms, and the Massachusetts quarter has a firearm depicted on it. A teacher, of all people, should know better than to bring such items on campus," said Superintendent Stew Pid.

Pid was referring to the Massachusetts quarter, released in 2000 as part of the US Mint's extremely popular 50 State Quarters Program. The Massachusetts quarter clearly shows a minuteman carrying a firearm.

"I thought all money was acceptable at school," said Potts. "I just wanted a rice cake and gave the cafeteria lady some coins, one of which was the quarter in question. It never occurred to me to 'screen' my money, and I had no idea the cafeteria ladies were trained to look for people spending this particular quarter."

Potts referred to a recently-instituted anti-violence program at school, the Cafeteria Workers Against Rotten Teachers Endorsing Rifles, or CWARTER.

"The CWARTER program is an effective anti-violence campaign implemented at all our schools," according to Superintendent Pid. "We've trained all our cafeteria ladies to be on the lookout for money with weaponry on it."

After spending the inappropriate quarter, Ms. Potts was placed on unpaid administrative leave. Next Tuesday she will plead her case before the school board, which is expected to terminate her employment immediately.

OK, that didn't really happen. Want to read what idiotic thing really did happen to a Wisconsin teacher? Try this post at Joanne's.

A middle school teacher has been placed on leave for posting a photo of herself with a rifle on her Facebook page, reports WKOW 27 News in Wisconsin.

Compare that with the first paragraph I wrote above. Hard to tell which is real and which is parody, isn't it?

Update, 2/12/09: Well, that was fast:

The Beaver Dam teacher, placed on leave for what District officials deemed an “inappropriate” picture on her Facebook page, finally returned to class. The district investigated and she won’t face any more discipline. You can read the update to that story here: http://www.wkowtv.com/global/story.asp?s=9821639

You might think that would be the end of it, but you would be wrong:

The teacher’s union and the District are going to get together to come up with a policy at what teachers can and cannot post on their private Facebook page.

Amazing. If I were a teacher in that district, they could bite me.

Just as interesting, though, is this tidbit:

What I do find interesting now is that the union supported the action taken by the District and now, they’ll sit down to discuss policy.

That woman paid money to a union that supported her suspension when she did nothing wrong. I could go on an anti-union rant here, but I couldn't harm them any worse than they've harmed themselves in this case.