Greensville Texas; A photo circulated on face book of a teacher with her foot on the neck of a student. The teacher, who is white, and the student who is black, staged the photo after some back and forth bantering about his behavior in class and her threat, stated to be in jest, that she would put her foot on his neck.
The teacher sent the photo to the mother of the student who also viewed the depiction as harmless, however when she shared the picture with family members their reaction was anything but amused.
When the photo surfaced on social media, the school district sent letters of apology to parents in the district and placed the teacher on leave pending the results of an investigation.
“My initial thought when seeing the photo was actually disgust and concern for the child in the picture,” said GISD Superintendent Demtrus Liggins, Ph.D. “Again it’s completely unacceptable, it’s completely out of the norm for our community and expectation that we have here at Greenville ISD.”
Neither the mother nor the student want the teacher to lose her job. The mother regrets having shared the picture which resulted in her sister posting it. The mother said she knows she’ll get heat for thinking the picture was a joke, but said she’s willing to take the heat for the elementary teacher.
“I don’t feel like she deserves to lose her job. She’s a good person, she’s a good woman, I mean everybody is going to feel the way that they feel, and I understand in today’s society you can’t joke like that, you can’t play around like that, maybe it’s just a lesson learned,” explained the mom.
It was a joke between me, her and my son, and nobody knows the relationship that we have, except the three of us,” she said.