A substitute teacher in North Carolina is facing backlash after she told an elementary school class that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. killed himself.
The comment was made Friday at Rand Road Elementary by Elizabeth Temple, who was apparently having trouble getting the class to calm down, according to HuffPost.
Temple reportedly told the students that people who didn’t support President Donald Trump weren’t real Christians and that one student was wearing “prison attire.”
“What book is she reading and obviously it’s not the right one, and for her to say this to a classroom full of kids, giving them that misinformed information is just bogus,” Billy Byrd, whose son Nathan attends the school, told WTVD. “We can’t afford to have anybody in the school system that is teaching this damaging rhetoric to any kid—White or Black.”
Byrd said on Facebook that Nathan and other male students were told by the teacher that their outfits meant they were destined to spend time behind bars.
“[She] found the need to comment on my son’s appearance and the clothing that he was wearing”
In addition to the prison comments and the false information about King, Byrd said Temple “constructed her own lesson plan that glorified President Trump and his love for God, country and all Americans.”
“She basically targeted me,” Nathan told news station WRAL. “She said, ‘If
In a statement to HuffPost, chief of communications for the Wake County Public School System Timothy Simmons, said:
The school became aware of the students’ concerns Friday afternoon as classes were ending. The principal and staff talked with as many students as possible before the day ended. Based on those conversations, the substitute teacher was contacted over the weekend and immediately resigned. She is no longer eligible to teach in the district.
