A dad has called for his kid’s teacher to be fired after the educator called the student’s homework efforts ‘absolutely pathetic’.
Chris Piland, from Pennsylvania, was ‘beyond frustrated’ with the second grade teacher’s response to his son’s homework.
When his son, Kamdyn, showed Chris the feedback on his arithmetic task, the Pennsylvania dad was so disappointed he decided to share it with his friends on Facebook.
The teacher’s method of grading – complete with a sad face in red ink – has since gone viral with people divided over the feedback.
The second grade student – which is for kids aged between seven and eight, for you Brits – had been set the challenge of answering as many maths questions as he could in three minutes.
He completed thirteen, which seems fair for a seven- or eight-year-old who could probably be thinking of something more interesting to do with their weekday evening.
His frustrated dad shared a photo of the homework to Facebook, calling the teacher ‘so rude’, adding sarcastically it was hardly ‘great motivation’.
It showed his teacher, who has been reportedly named locally as Alyssa Rupp Bohenek, had shared quite a severe reprimand.
She had written:
Absolutely pathetic he answered 13 in 3 min! Sad.
Commentators voiced differing opinions on the incident, with some teachers weighing in and decrying the teacher’s actions. Some didn’t see the problem.
Meanwhile, others said they’d never even use a red pen on a kid’s work because it’s too aggressive.
Since the post went viral, a petition has been set up with the aim of getting the teacher fired from her job at the Valley View school district. It has attracted more than 16,000 signatures, at the time of writing.
The school board is now understood to be investigating.
School superintendent Rose Minniti said, per Fox10:
It’s a personnel issue and the results of that are not going to be dictated by social media. It’s going to be dictated by the facts and evidence.
As always with everything, we’re going to try to do what’s best for the students and what we need to do for the employee under investigation.
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A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.