A teacher in Colorado is facing termination for attacking the Covington Catholic teens by referring to them as “Hitler Youth.”
Sickening.
For what?
Standing there with a smile as the Native American charged with a drum?
Really?
Looks like the school board isn’t amused either.
From Fox31:
The Superintendent of Douglas County Schools has asked the school board to fire a teacher over tweets she wrote last month.
Mountain Ridge Middle School teacher Michelle Grissom has been on administrative leave since January 20th following tweets accusing a student in Kentucky of being involved in a viral video of teens and Native Americans in Washington, D.C.
The tweets accused the boy of being part of the “Hitler Youth”. However, the student she tweeted about was not in Washington, D.C. at the time.
“I understand that many in the community have strong opinions regarding Ms. Grissom and the circumstances giving rise to my recommendation. The District respects those opinions. However, to ensure that the process complies with Colorado law, while the dismissal process is ongoing, Douglas County School District will not provide further comment,” Superintendent Thomas Tucker wrote in a statement.
A group of parents had been calling for Grissom to be fired. About two dozen held a rally before Tuesday night’s school board meeting to call on the board to take action against her. The parents are also upset about the board’s policy limiting public comment to items on the agenda.
“This school board says you cannot speak to us until you’ve gone to the teacher, the principal until you’ve gone to the superintendent,” Douglas County resident and former Colorado State Senator Ted Harvey told FOX31.
Last month, Harvey and a handful of others signed up to speak during the public comment period at the school board meeting about Grissom. He says his request was denied.
“They were telling most people they couldn’t speak at all because we weren’t speaking on the topic that they wanted us to talk about,” parent Brad Wann said.
According to board policy, public comments are limited to items on each meeting’s agenda.
“The system in which to get your voice across is broken and it’s time that we as citizens stand up and do the right thing,” Wann said.
And confirmed by the mother ship at Fox News:
A Colorado teacher is reportedly facing termination for calling a Kentucky high school student a member of the "Hitler Youth" after she incorrectly identified the teen as being one of the students at last month's March For Life seen in a controversial viral video -- which itself has been widely misrepresented.
The superintendent for the Douglas County School District recommended Mountain Ridge Middle School teacher Michelle Grissom be dismissed, KDVR reported.
In a statement, Superintendent Thomas Tucker said Grissom is entitled to a hearing, however, before the school board makes a final decision, according to KDVR.
Grissom, who has been on administrative leave since Jan. 20, is accused of sharing tweets wrongly identifying a student in Kentucky as one of the teens seen in a video showing an interaction between students from Covington Catholic High School and a Native American activist after a Jan. 18 pro-life event in Washington D.C. That viral video itself was initially misrepresented to paint the teens in a bad light. A more lengthy recording of the encounter, however, showed the Covington students were not harassing the activist, as had been alleged.
“His name is Jay Jackson. His twitter account is closed to non followers so we don’t interfere with his training in the #HitlerYouth,” Grissom tweeted, according to Complete Colorado.
Much like the initial video misrepresenting the Covington high school students, Grissom’s tweet went viral.
The 17-year-old boy’s father saw the tweet and responded, saying his son was not on the field trip to the nation’s capital, and instead was playing in a varsity basketball game hundreds of miles away at the time of the incident. The man even went so far as to provide proof of his claim, Complete Colorado reported.
He later tweeted, tagging the school district: “she finally apologized but has refused to take down her post and my son’s picture. My son was harassed and bullied as a result of this teacher’s rush to judgment…totally abhorrent behavior and inexcusable actions that need to have consequences.”
Grissom’s Twitter account has since been made private. According to Complete Colorado, Grissom has been employed with the school district since Aug. 1, 1999, and earns $74,015.55 per year.
The March For Life incident at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial went viral after a short video purported to show Covington high school student Nick Sandmann harassing Native American activist Nathan Phillips. The teenager was vilified online.
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