Dad Vents About Teacher. Now 16K Want Her Fired

Chris Piland's frustration triggers a Change.org petition
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 20, 2019 5:40 PM CDT
Angry Dad Wants Teacher Fired—and 16K Agree
Alyssa Rupp Bohenek is seen in an instructional math video on YouTube.   (YouTube)

A Pennsylvania dad's frustration has boiled over and put his son's math teacher in the hot seat, Fox News reports. On Tuesday, Chris Piland posted a Facebook photo of his son's second-grade math assignment with a comment from the teacher: "Absolutely pathetic. He answered 13 in 3 min! Sad." Piland fumed, "My son Kamdyn's teacher has been so rude to him and myself all year he comes home with this and I am beyond frustrated that someone would write this on a childs [sic] work such great motivation." His post went viral and triggered an online petition to have the teacher, Alyssa Rupp Bohenek, fired from Valley View Elementary School in Archibald, Penn. Over 16,000 have signed as of this writing. "No reason to humiliate a child or anyone else," writers one of the signers.

The Valley View School District is investigating, but school superintendent Rose Minniti tells the Scranton Times-Tribune this is no slam dunk. "It's a personnel issue and the results of that are not going to be dictated by social media," says Minniti. "It's going to be dictated by the facts and evidence." A counter-petition has appeared to save Bohenek's job, saying she should be "reprimanded ... not fired," though it has only 740 signatures thus far. The teacher's feedback was "clearly aimed at the parent [for] not encouraging or engaging in the homework" unless "the child has learning difficulties," says one signer. Indeed, Bohenek sent parents a letter this school year saying "homework is to be completed together with an adult, NOT alone!" Bohenek has taught in the Valley View district for six years and her father teaches at Valley View High, per Heavy. (More teacher stories.)

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