A school district in Washington state sent a "letter of reprimand" to a teacher for making sexually suggestive jokes in class and said that terminating the educator over her actions was too "extreme."
A Washington state teacher was issued a "letter of reprimand" instead of being terminated after she made sexually suggestive jokes with students during her class. But the school district believed that she did not deserve to be punished with termination because that would be too "extreme."
According to Fox News, Casey Anderson is a teacher in the Anacortes School District who shared on social media an exchange she had with her students about a novelty "cat butt" tissue dispenser displayed in her classroom. The Washington school teacher commented that she used Vaseline to load tissues into the dispenser.
Anderson took to Facebook to share that in her room, she had a "cat butt tissue dispenser" that was "out of tissues." She wrote that one of her students noticed it and asked how she refilled the dispenser. The Washington teacher wrote, "I pause for a moment, then tell my class, 'I turn down the lights, put on some soft music, and use a LOT of vasoline."
Anderson did not stop there, as she recounted how she instructed students to retrieve a jar of petroleum jelly from the classroom closet. Petroleum jelly is commonly used as a sexual lubricant. The Washington teacher added that she had them get the petroleum jelly that she "had in [her] closet (for...reasons...) and placed it right by the cat. Class took a turn after that."
The Washington school teacher was seemingly aware that her comments would become an issue with the school, as she labeled her post as "The most recent entry into, 'Things Ms. Anderson Will Hear About From HR,'" implying that she had done other questionable things as an educator and may have had other run-ins with HR before.
"The Anacortes School District has conducted an investigation involving the high school teacher's conversation in class and subsequent social media post about the conversation," the school district Superintendent Justin Irish confirmed. "Both the post and the conversation were inappropriate and not tolerated by the district. The teacher admitted the conduct and has been cooperative with the investigation."
Irish added that Anderson received a "formal letter of reprimand" for the incident but that any "repercussions of progressive discipline" would be "an escalated response." The superintendent said that despite the Washington teacher's "concerning" conduct, Anderson "does not merit such an extreme result as termination."
Irish said that the school district consulted with a legal counsel and teacher's union over the incident and checked applicable state laws. They also committed to working with faculty to "adhere to professional standards." Anderson's social media posts went viral after it was posted to the Twitter account Libs of TikTok, which has over 500,000 followers.
In February, the South Dakota Department of Education permanently revoked the certificate of a former Whittier Middle School teacher who repeatedly made inappropriate, gender-motivated comments to students, the Argus Leader reported. Jalen Boyd, who taught eight grade math at Whittier Middle School for less than a school year, was accused of playing a "marry, have sex with, or kill" game with a student, suggested that he would have sex with other teachers, used a ruler and innuendo to indicate the size of his male parts.
Boyd also commented on the size of his students' breasts, rated students' and staffs' attractiveness and his desire to sleep with them, and overshared about his personal life. Students would often skip Boyd's class but would later made to feel bad about themselves. The teacher was terminated in May 2021.
