Story Archive

So That’s Why They Don’t Allow Cell Phones in Classrooms

When a 10-year-old student with Asperger Syndrome got stuck in a chair in class, his teacher sprang into action. Nicole McVey, fifth-grade teacher at Oaktree Elementary in Goodrich, Mich., allegedly pulled out her camera phone and started recording. At one point, McVey is heard asking the student if he wants to be tasered. The school’s principal, Michael Ellis, is also heard in the video; he showed it all to the class, and Ellis emailed it to other staff members. The school board voted to accept Ellis’ resignation, and brought tenure charges against McVey, but the community rallied to support her. “There’s no way that Mrs. McVey ever bullied any child in that class,” insisted one parent. The taser statement is just an inside joke, they say. “A taser means to take your two pointer fingers in a tickling motion in the side in order to distract or get a kid to focus on something else rather than a situation that’s dangerous to him or to other people,” said parent Erin Raether. The boy’s parents are upset that their son “is now labeled as a disturbance to the other ‘normal’ children in his class. Our son did nothing wrong, but yet this seems to be another case of blaming the victim.” (MS/WJRT Flint) ...It’s an inside joke, which is why people are only laughing on the inside.
Original Publication Date: 09 March 2014
This story is in True’s book collections, in Volume 20.

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