A PE teacher at Oak Grove High School in San Jose is currently on leave and could face disciplinary action after she allegedly made a deeply ignorant and offensive remark to a student during an assembly last Wednesday, the day after the election. As ABC 7 reports, the teacher was trying to get a student to stand during the singing of the national anthem, and when he refused, she said he could deported now under President-Elect Trump.
The Mercury-News reports that the teacher has been in the school district a long time, and was quickly placed on paid leave pending a disciplinary review. She has not been publicly identified.
East Side Union High School District Superintendent Chris Funk said to the paper, "No question that some of our students who are undocumented are concerned about deportation and what’s going to happen to their families."
NBC Bay Area first had the story, getting an account from the male student of what the teacher said. After he was quietly protesting, as 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other athletes have in recent months, the teacher approached him and told him to stand. When he refused, she reportedly said, "Good luck with being deported now that Donald Trump is president. ...You guys had it better here than you will over there."
The students who heard this immediately reported the teacher's comments to the school principal.
School districts across the Bay Area are roiling with tension over the election, how to address it amidst a wave of student walk-outs, and how to discuss it particularly with students from immigrant families, and those who may be undocumented themselves.
News came this week of a lesson plan circulated among San Francisco teachers espousing a decidedly left-wing view of Trump supporters and attempting to put the supposed "white rage" of Middle America in a larger historical context.
Also, several teachers and principals on the opposite end of the political spectrum from this San Jose PE teacher have had uncontrollable anti-Trump outbursts for which they have also been briefly disciplined, like this guy.
Related: SF Teachers Circulate Lesson Plan Discussing Trump And His Supporters As Racist And Sexist
