State Wants To Revoke License of Clay Teacher Over Kirk Remarks
The Move Was Announced At A Press Conference In Orlando
Charlie Kirk’s assassination has dominated the news and internet for the past two weeks. And now one teacher’s reaction to his death may end up dominating her ability to teach in Florida.
Yesterday at a press conference in Orlando, the Florida Commissioner of Education Anastasios Kamoutsas announced that an investigation into Kelly Rodman-Sanchez, a teacher at Ridgeview Elementary School, has led to probable cause to seek the revocation of her teaching license.
Sanchez commented after Kirk’s death, “This may not be the obituary we were all hoping to wake up to, but this is a close second for me.”
As outlined in our previous story, this wasn’t Sanchez’s first foray into questionable online posts about politics. Clay News & Views learned that Sanchez was already facing scrutiny from parents at Ridgeview prior to her Kirk post. It is unclear what action, if any, the School District took in regards to Sanchez’s previous social media posts.
In fairness to the School District, none of her previous posts rose to the level of hoping a sitting President was dead and celebrating the murder of someone else. Educators in Florida don’t relinquish their First Amendment rights when they become teachers, but they are expected to uphold professional standards both at work and in public.
According to Commissioner Kamoutsas, Sanchez has failed to meet the standards expected of educators. He also added that while Florida supports freedom of speech, supporting or glorifying violence is not protected speech.
While Sanchez’s posts are ill-advised at best, the real problem they reveal is a lack of discretion. The response from parents and other teachers was overwhelmingly negative, proving that teachers, whether in Florida or elsewhere, need to use discretion in their interactions with students and parents. Not all topics and subjects are suitable and appropriate for teachers to introduce in schools, and teachers are expected to exercise discretion in avoiding inappropriate subjects.
At the very least, the frequency, tone, and topics of Sanchez’s posts gave people the impression that Sanchez lacks proper discretion. According to Kamoutsas, this led to over 500 complaints about Sanchez being submitted to the Clay County School District leadership.
Though the announcement was made today, the state will have to follow a process to officially revoke Sanchez’s teaching license. At some point, the matter will be decided by the Education Practices Commission (EPC).
The EPC has options depending on Sanchez’s response to the allegations. Should she admit to blame and take responsibility, an informal hearing could be held to determine consequences or negotiate a settlement with the state. If Sanchez doesn’t admit guilt, a formal hearing will be held to determine the merit of the charges and impose appropriate consequences.
The problem is the cherry-picking of "sadness", "mourning", "outrage". What do all the murdered school children get? Any stadium-sized "celebrations" for them? What about that Democratic couple murdered in their home (along with their dog)? Don't they warrant as much attention? The problems go WAY deeper than this teacher -- who doesn't even use her real name on her posts, so who's going to the trouble to "out" her? I worry about my posts, too, but I'm only here once, and this nation I was born into and whose family fought in wars for is being dismantled from the inside out and too many Americans don't see it. The corrosion MAGA is causing may be irreparable and history will deal very badly with this Trump/MAGA era.
The problem is a 22 yr old young man shot and killed another young married family man because he didn’t like him.
Our Republican Party HAS BEEN Complacent. We have allowed all this madness to carry on. We stood up and DID NOTHING. This has been going on long before TRUMP stood up and said, ENOUGH.
Now let’s all get our heads out of our own bums and get in the same game and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN…. MAGA. What is bad about that?
Teachers need to be teaching our children just how great our free country is, and all the amazing things our nation has to offer….
Because imagine if the/ our teachers did the job they were hired to do….teach our children… how to move forward…and provide for life….with the education the teacher provided them with…..
Too Bad our schools aren’t The Bolles or St John’s County Day School…wait wouldn’t that create equity? I mean equality….HMMMMM…. Our public schools suck….