Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Teacher gets reprimand for classroom remarks

By Francis X. Gilpin - (Fayetteville Observer)

A Fayetteville teacher whose classroom encounter with a young John McCain supporter created a stir on YouTube has confirmed that she was given a disciplinary letter.

But Diatha Harris said an internal investigation of her conduct cleared the veteran educator of violating state law or Cumberland County Board of Education policy.

Harris, 53, was videotaped in the spring by a Swedish film crew, leading a classroom discussion about the 2008 presidential election with fifth-graders at Mary McArthur Elementary School.

During the discussion, Harris called the Iraq war “senseless” and told her pupils that U.S. troops could stay in Iraq for 100 years if McCain was president.

“So that means that your daddy could stay in the military for another hundred years,” Harris told pupil Cathy Thompson in the classroom footage.

In other scenes shot outside the classroom, Harris sports a Barack Obama campaign button.

The video aired in a documentary broadcast on Finnish television earlier this month. A blogger posted snippets from the broadcast on YouTube, and Internet viewers responded by bombarding Superintendent Bill Harrison’s office with calls for Harris to be fired.

Harris has apologized to the pupil and her parents, Army Staff Sgt. Robert Thompson and Angela Moore. But the parents have said they didn’t object to how Harris handled herself in the classroom.

In interviews this week, Harris downplayed the significance of the written reprimand from Harrison. She has not made the letter public.

“But I do want it out there that I did not break any board policy,” Harris said. “I did not break any laws.”

Harris remains a teacher at the school.

School officials were unavailable for comment at their offices Friday. Harrison couldn’t be reached.

But the superintendent has said that no information about possible discipline of Harris would be made public because of state personnel laws.

Harris, who has taught for 31 years, said she didn’t want to make additional public statements until she consults with her lawyer.

School officials also are withholding information about possible discipline of another local teacher. Melissa Smith was accused of disparaging an Obama administration in front of her Mac Williams Middle School class after the election.

In a complaint to the school system, a parent quoted Smith as telling the pupils “don’t come crying to me” if the taxes paid by their parents go to “a 13-year-old girl for an abortion.”

Smith later apologized to her class after the complaint was made, according to the parent.