School Apologizes After Photo Showed Teacher Taping Mask to Student’s Face
One parent response: “So this specifically — I want to know, have there been any other teachers who taped masks to kids?”
The North Penn School District in Pennsylvania apologized after a photo emerged of a teacher at Pennfield Middle School taping a mask to a child’s face:
An image taken in one of our classrooms last week and circulating on social media does not represent the universal values that the North Penn School District strives to instill in both our students and staff. After an immediate investigation, it was determined that while the incident was isolated and no malice was intended, the actions of the teacher were entirely inappropriate and unacceptable, no matter the context.
We understand that the act of taping a mask to a student’s face is concerning to many and apologize that it occurred. The matter is serious and it is being addressed with the employee. However, all personnel and student matters are confidential and no further information can be provided.
The photo first appeared on the Facebook group North Penn Stronger Together on January 17. They did not say when the incident occurred.
Parents lined up to speak at a school board meeting on January 20. The parents demanded the school district fire the teacher:
“As parents and taxpayers, we deserve to know how this situation is being handled,” one woman said. “Because as of now, we heard the teacher, who is a special education teacher, is not arrested for child abuse, nor fired.”
One man was emotional at the microphone, saying, “So this specifically — I want to know, have there been any other teachers who taped masks to kids?”
Taping a mask to a child’s face is cruel. If she did this to a special education student it’s downright evil.
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Oh. Sure, an apology makes everything better.
They aren’t even going to punish the teacher. Why do you think they’re refusing to release any information?
“I apologize for getting caught.”
Questions requiring answers from the school board: (1) Is this teacher still employed? (2) If so, why does the school board condone this action? (3) How many other district employees, including teachers and administrators, are assaulting students that we don’t know about, apparently with board approval? (See Louden County, Virginia, School Board.) (4) What will you do after you are voted or forced off the school board?
If the child had any form of obstructive breathing taping a mask to their face will make them feel like they are being smothered.
I have news for you. Wearing a mask for 7-8 hours a day whether a cloth mask or otherwise will make anyone feel like they are being smothered healthy or not. Take it from me, a person who was forced to wear a nasty mask for 9 hour work shifts. I cannot imagine what it must be like, have been like, for those with chronic breathing problems.
Sweet Lord. How are these teachers not afraid of legal consequences? Actually having to touch a kid, especially without the kid’s explicit permission, is so legally risky. It blows my mind that 1) Anybody would think this is okay and 2) Anybody wouldn’t understand that you get fired for this kind of stuff these days.
Teachers have Democrat privilege that protects them from being criminally charged.
I wish I had that privilege. It takes so very little to get us fired (or blackballed) that I have to be very very careful with anything physical. The men (or women who want to) at my school get training three times a year on safe restraint and what exactly we are allowed to do and not do and the line is very very fine. This kind of thing just blows my mind.
They are not afraid of legal consequences because they know the Union will protect them at any cost and that they’ve set up a contractual termination process so convoluted that most likely it will be next to impossible for the school district to terminate the teacher9(s) involved in this incident.
Unions.
So, a parent cannot spank their child, but a teacher can affix a mask to a child’s face? I guess she used tape because she ran out of staples.
Terminated? No, the stupid bitch needs to be backhanded, according to Der Fuhrer, Robert Reich.
Sue the bytch, long and hard
The video clip from the news was almost as bad – @we don’t know what happened before or after”, yada yada yada.
Almost like they were saying”it’s not like what you think it is”.
I’m not the only parent thinking “if that was my child, you’ll need a doctor, a physical therapist, a lawyer, a bail bondsman and a real estate agent”.
I will posit a possible scenario given my experience with this. Pretty much any school that has masks will have some type of zero tolerance policy at the administration level and different teachers will have varying levels of enforcement of that policy. Almost none of my students wore a mask over their nose for more than a few moments. If you were me, you didn’t really care. If you were crazy mask Karen down the hall, then you really cared and regularly wrote referrals when a mask would slip for any reason.
Maybe because they were crazy to start with, but some people have totally lost their minds and turn the mask thing into a stupid power struggle. I would bet this kid has been told some version of “put your mask on!!!!!!” several times by this crazy lady. He invariably will have replied with some version of “I can’t, my mask keeps falling down when I X.” Crazy lady then decided to resolve the issue and win the power struggle by taping it up and going “Ha! See, now it will stay up! I win!”
I have heard of several such instances where a teacher was dismissed after exactly such a scenario. Then again, maybe I am just baselessly speculating.
I would guess that, most likely, classes with masks not covering the whole face had no more covid transmission than more strict classes fully covered.
If it was my kid, I’d need the lawyer and the “teacher” would need a funeral director.
Saving grace is that if our kids were still in school we would home school them. There is no way in hell I’d put my kids in public school.
Teachers are the enemy of America and the enemy of American children and families.
The teacher’s mask should be affixed to her face with a nail gun.
And the context will make this OK? The context is this is a Special Education class, and the teacher is a Special Education teacher.
I can guarantee you, this is not what she learned in her Master’s program.
A Statement from the North Penn School District
An image taken in one of our classrooms last week and circulating on social media does not represent the universal values that the North Penn School District strives to instill in both our students and staff. After an immediate investigation, it was determined that while the incident was isolated and no malice was intended, the actions of the teacher were entirely inappropriate and unacceptable, no matter the context.
We understand that the act of taping a mask to a student’s face is concerning to many and apologize that it occurred. The matter is serious and it is being addressed with the employee. However, all personnel and student matters are confidential and no further information can be provided.
I just love how they issue these not-pologies and think that will be the end of it. And then hide behind the bogus “personnel and student matters are confidential” mantra. and they can’t release any further information.
Here’s what the North Penn School District needs to do. Terminate the employment of the teacher that even thought it was appropriate to touch a student let alone tape a mask to a child’s face. Whether maliciously meant or of just a “one off incidet” I wouldn’t trust this teacher around children any longer. Also revoke this teacher’s credential/license so that they cannot be hired in any capacity that would put her in charge of children any longer.
And then hope that the family of this child does not sue you into oblivion
But that’s just my 2¢
And then hope that the family of this child doesn’t sue you into oblivion for such an ignorant act as well as such a
Serious question: Why isn’t law enforcement investigating this obvious incident of assault on a minor child?
Pennsylvania Senate race just got a bit more difficult for d/prog. Every d/prog in PA should be hammered with a ‘do you approve and if not what specific consequences do you propose’ question. Same for school boards and education unions.
Apologies? Stick them up your #%$.
Action is all that matters: CONSEQUENCES are all that matter.
Are we done with mentally ill people running our schools?????
So the teacher’s photo and the district this happened are both publicly available. Why is this woman’s entire life not being combed through by internet sleuths to out her for this kind of thing?
The left weaponizes doxing for anything… why doesn’t the right?
“………the actions of the teacher were entirely inappropriate and unacceptable, no matter the context. ”
if this indeed be the position of the school district then why is this woman still employed as a teacher? –lord
How did we come to this? What do we as a people need to do to ensure these mask karens are barred from our schools, not to mention the complete lunatics regulary pointed out on other sites?
How did these crazy people become teachers to begin with? Certainly their professors could see they were mentally ill, how were they allowed to graduate let alone teach a classroom?
Some people tell you to go to the school board meetings and speak out, and we see where that led us. Now you are a domestic terrorist, or arrested because you are angry your kid was raped.
And nothing happens except more non-apologies and inaction. This woman (I won’t call her a teacher) should have been immediately arrested and charged with assault. On a special needs kid to boot.
At this point as a minimum, I believe we need to begin to install cameras in all classrooms. I see it as nothing different than asking LEOs to wear body cameras. It’s transparency. Put a Axon camera around the necks of these commies, and I suspect they will at least hide their crap if not stop it entirely. And if not they can go.
In my experience as a student, the teachers who watched every minor infraction were always they crappiest teachers. Teachers who overlooked the small stuff were better at maintaining class order, teaching the material, and they had fun while doing teaching.
Bingo. I am too busy in my day to care about little stuff. I think those teachers are just power trippy.
People are getting distracted by the tape. The real question is why the student is being forced to wear a mask.
A teacher does not have the right to touch me. Not in kindergarten (nice German word), not in 4th grade, not in college.
You scumbag teacher, you can’t button my shirt, adjust my bra strap or help me tie my shoes.
You cannot touch me. You are not my parent or guardian. The parent should have no problem getting this “teacher” arrested, fired, even kicked out of the union. Wake up, people!!!
Are we sure the child didn’t want the mask taped to his face? My son is autistic and when I heard the teacher was a special ed teacher I can easily see circumstances where this would be possible. From what I read and saw in the video above I feel like I just don’t have enough information to judge the situation.
My son just started his first college class yesterday. My wife or I have to drive him to school because even though he will be 20 in April he still does not have his drivers license because he is afraid he will have an accident and injure or kill someone. We’re pushing him to get one and for practice he got Grand Theft Auto and proudly told me he hasn’t hit any pedestrians.
Blame who ever you want but COVID frightens him as well. He wears N95 masks because he does not like the gaps in normal medical masks. If his N95 broke or was damaged at his school and he had to wear a medical mask that was offered to him he would probably have a panic attack. If the teacher offered to tape the gaps shut like this I’m sure he would have been quite happy and it would have calmed him down. Instead of asking for the teacher to be fired I would be extremely grateful and my wife and I would be thanking the teacher for taking care of our son.
I know that’s a pretty specific hypothetical circumstance but I would like more information if anyone has it before I judge what’s really happening here.
Bring back the stocks and baskets of rotting foodstuffs.