Article: Montgomery County Teacher Under Fire for Allegedly Harassing, Humiliating 8-year-old Muslim Student

[Anonymous]

We need cameras in all classrooms.

[Anonymous]

The principal is absolutely useless and unhelpful when incidents happen at Cabin Branch elementary. It's not surprising she did nothing to help this little girl and her family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have worked for this administrator before. None of this surprises me

Which administration and when?

[Anonymous]

There was a post on our school listaerve a few weeks ago that a staff member harassed a student for wearing a headcover. It turns out that it was a student who did not normally headcover and it was not clearly a religious head covering and so the staff member had inquired about it to make sure the child was not harassing the students who do headcover by mocking them. Teacher trying to prevent harassment accused of harassment because kids often misinterpret things.

I’m not questioning the little girl. But I know my own kids misinterpret things all the time, because they don’t have the same perspective or experience as the adults they interact with. I don’t know what happened here and of course it’s entirely possible that the teacher did say something awful. If so there are probs my witnesses.

[Anonymous]

2 kids in MCPS.

There are all kinds of teachers. Good and bad. Some are really good, some are decent and some are really bad.

Really bad ones, simply make up stuff and if caught, simply try to pretend that they did not say it. I suspected happenig that when my kids were younger, but when they were older there was no room for any doubt. An extreme situation a teacher making up stuff in front of us one time.

Other extreme has been a very kind teacher who went out of the way to help my kid. I won't assume anything about a teacher. Just like everywhere else, all kinds of teachers work in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have worked for this administrator before. None of this surprises me

Which administration and when?

The administrator at Cabin Branch. And it was 5 years ago at a different elementary school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a post on our school listaerve a few weeks ago that a staff member harassed a student for wearing a headcover. It turns out that it was a student who did not normally headcover and it was not clearly a religious head covering and so the staff member had inquired about it to make sure the child was not harassing the students who do headcover by mocking them. Teacher trying to prevent harassment accused of harassment because kids often misinterpret things.

I’m not questioning the little girl. But I know my own kids misinterpret things all the time, because they don’t have the same perspective or experience as the adults they interact with. I don’t know what happened here and of course it’s entirely possible that the teacher did say something awful. If so there are probs my witnesses.

Mcps employee here: it’s very hard to put a teacher on administrative leave. The fact that this teacher was placed on leave tells me that there’s at least some evidence. Or it’s possible that the principal put this teacher on leave to cover up her own inaction or lack of intervention earlier on when complaints began. Either way, something bad happened

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The media tends to downplay Islamophobic incidents and give a ton of press to antisemitic incidents. Not surprising that this incident hasn’t been picked up by the mainstream press

THIS. A Yemeni girl was attacked by an old man with a knife in attempted murder. Another muslim girl was nearly drowned in a pool by a Jewish woman. 2 Pal-Americans shot by a psycho. The list goes on and on but we never hear about them in the mainstream news. But student protestors with signs? That is ALL that you will ever hear about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2 kids in MCPS.

There are all kinds of teachers. Good and bad. Some are really good, some are decent and some are really bad.

Really bad ones, simply make up stuff and if caught, simply try to pretend that they did not say it. I suspected happenig that when my kids were younger, but when they were older there was no room for any doubt. An extreme situation a teacher making up stuff in front of us one time.

Other extreme has been a very kind teacher who went out of the way to help my kid. I won't assume anything about a teacher. Just like everywhere else, all kinds of teachers work in MCPS.

This is true. I’m not surprised by this story. There are some crazy teachers out there. MCPS is very scared of being sued by AIPAC and so they tend to do nothing against Islamophobia unless they are forced into a corner

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 kids in MCPS.

There are all kinds of teachers. Good and bad. Some are really good, some are decent and some are really bad.

Really bad ones, simply make up stuff and if caught, simply try to pretend that they did not say it. I suspected happenig that when my kids were younger, but when they were older there was no room for any doubt. An extreme situation a teacher making up stuff in front of us one time.

Other extreme has been a very kind teacher who went out of the way to help my kid. I won't assume anything about a teacher. Just like everywhere else, all kinds of teachers work in MCPS.

This is true. I’m not surprised by this story. There are some crazy teachers out there. MCPS is very scared of being sued by AIPAC and so they tend to do nothing against Islamophobia unless they are forced into a corner

There is racism against all groups in MCPS. The leadership creates a divide vs. bringing people together. Admin at our school hated white kids, especially the boys and targeted them big time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The media tends to downplay Islamophobic incidents and give a ton of press to antisemitic incidents. Not surprising that this incident hasn’t been picked up by the mainstream press

THIS. A Yemeni girl was attacked by an old man with a knife in attempted murder. Another muslim girl was nearly drowned in a pool by a Jewish woman. 2 Pal-Americans shot by a psycho. The list goes on and on but we never hear about them in the mainstream news. But student protestors with signs? That is ALL that you will ever hear about.

. This is so sad. The amount of Islamophobia is off the charts and it’s underreported because it’s hardly ever in the news. I hope there is justice for everyone impacted by it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a post on our school listaerve a few weeks ago that a staff member harassed a student for wearing a headcover. It turns out that it was a student who did not normally headcover and it was not clearly a religious head covering and so the staff member had inquired about it to make sure the child was not harassing the students who do headcover by mocking them. Teacher trying to prevent harassment accused of harassment because kids often misinterpret things.

I’m not questioning the little girl. But I know my own kids misinterpret things all the time, because they don’t have the same perspective or experience as the adults they interact with. I don’t know what happened here and of course it’s entirely possible that the teacher did say something awful. If so there are probs my witnesses.

Mcps employee here: it’s very hard to put a teacher on administrative leave. The fact that this teacher was placed on leave tells me that there’s at least some evidence. Or it’s possible that the principal put this teacher on leave to cover up her own inaction or lack of intervention earlier on when complaints began. Either way, something bad happened

It’s not hard at all. I’ve been at schools where they absolutely put people on leave with no evidence pending an “investigation”. Toxic admin have free rein to put any staff member on admin leave. 100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a post on our school listaerve a few weeks ago that a staff member harassed a student for wearing a headcover. It turns out that it was a student who did not normally headcover and it was not clearly a religious head covering and so the staff member had inquired about it to make sure the child was not harassing the students who do headcover by mocking them. Teacher trying to prevent harassment accused of harassment because kids often misinterpret things.

I’m not questioning the little girl. But I know my own kids misinterpret things all the time, because they don’t have the same perspective or experience as the adults they interact with. I don’t know what happened here and of course it’s entirely possible that the teacher did say something awful. If so there are probs my witnesses.

Mcps employee here: it’s very hard to put a teacher on administrative leave. The fact that this teacher was placed on leave tells me that there’s at least some evidence. Or it’s possible that the principal put this teacher on leave to cover up her own inaction or lack of intervention earlier on when complaints began. Either way, something bad happened

It’s not hard at all. I’ve been at schools where they absolutely put people on leave with no evidence pending an “investigation”. Toxic admin have free rein to put any staff member on admin leave. 100%

Mcea (teachers union) really does have protection in place requiring evidence. I believe there must be some evidence in this situation for the teacher to be on leave. However I also believe the administrator was probably covering her own A$$

[Anonymous]

Teachers are put on leave DURING the investigation. It's been a real problem in past years and I would imagine this year, too. It puts a huge strain on the rest of the school, especially as subs are so hard to secure. Investigations are done to make sure that a fair outcome is reached. We should not presume the teacher is guilty yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. As an elementary teacher, I can tell you that all kinds of things are said. We had a student claim a teacher choked him this year. The teacher did nothing of the sort and luckily there were 2 other teachers in the room at the time, but the teacher still had to go through the disciplinary process and was on leave for a week during the investigation. The teacher was humiliated, and the case was found to be completely unfounded- just a student trying to be "funny."

We have had other situations as well where there is an investigation, but it turns out that it was just a misunderstanding or miscommunication.

I am not doubting the 8-year-old, but as a teacher and a parent, I know how often things are misunderstood or something goes home and is blown WAY out of proportion. Again, this is not to say this is what happened here, but I have been around long enough to know that you need to wait for the investigation.

If this did happen, I hope appropriate education will happen.

I was constantly in my kids es and ms as I was often requested by the teachers to be a room mom/whatever. I saw teachers bully children who were doing nothing. In 1st grade one teacher would blame one kid whose family was from Mexico for everything that went on in the room. She would grill the immigrant kids about "where they were really from". She was a mediocre teacher who couldn't manage her class. I talked to the principal after the umpteenth time of seeing her blame the one kid and it did nothing. If you're a teacher, you are not being honest if you say that you don't see teachers targeting certain kids. They do and often there is no obvious reason for it.