Natalie Munroe, Teacher Who Blogged That Students Are 'Lazy Whiners,' Has Right To Return, School Says

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. -- An English teacher suspended over blog postings in which she referred to students as "disengaged, lazy whiners" was reinstated because she has a legal right to her job, but dozens of students have already asked to be kept out of her classes, school officials said Wednesday.

Requests from students who ask not to be placed in Natalie Munroe's English and debate classes will be honored, Central Bucks East High School Principal Abe Lucabaugh said at a news conference. About 60 such requests have been made so far.

Lucabaugh said Munroe "has sacrificed her respect, her professionalism, and her ethical standing as an educator, role model and mentor for students."

"In exercising her right to speak and by blatantly refusing to apologize for her actions, she has created an unenviable position for herself," Lucabaugh said.

Munroe was suspended in February after officials at the suburban Philadelphia school became aware of her blog, in which she also described some students as "frightfully dim," "whiny" and "tactless."

On the blog, "Where Are We Going & Why Are We in This Handbasket," Munroe wrote under the name "Natalie M." and did not identify her school, district, colleagues, or students. But the blog did include her picture.

After her suspension, the district's superintendent said it would be "impossible" for her to return to Central Bucks East after her maternity leave. But in a statement Wednesday, the district said Munroe was reinstated because she has a legal right to her job. The district also said it would continue to monitor the environment at the school.

Last week, her attorney, Steven L. Rovner, announced that Munroe was being reinstated and that she was mulling what to do next. Rovner had said that he thought the best situation was for her to return to a different school in the district, but that school officials told him that was not an option.

Munroe has not commented on the decision.

The Bucks County Courier-Times reported Wednesday Lucabaugh said administrators considered transferring Munroe to another school, but determined that would be "irresponsible and further disruptive."

The district has a "back-up plan" in case no student wants to be in Munroe's class, but he declined to provide details, Superintendent N. Robert Laws said.

On the blog, Munroe listed some comments she wished she could post on student evaluations, including: "I hear the trash company is hiring"; "I called out sick a couple of days just to avoid your son"; and "Just as bad as his sibling. Don't you know how to raise kids?"

"My students are out of control," Munroe wrote in another post. "They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying."

___

Comments

[Frod43]

02:33 AM on 08/29/2011

However...in todays world...teenagers can put a cap in you...unlike in Plato"s time..!...I just retired from teaching mostly in ghetto and barrio schools ..(CA)... and now that I sub now and then in middle class and upper middle class schools ...I see a big difference in behavior.
The biggest difference is in the caliber of site administrators since they set the tone and demeanor of the school. I've had kids get transferred to schools with more rigor and student responsibility ..and the same students that were a pain at the first school ..rose to the challenge or at least tried..School culture is very important in student behavior ..

[vinny]

05:39 PM on 08/24/2011

"My students are out of control," Munroe wrote in another post. "They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying."
----------------

this teacher is ill-equipped and should be retrained. she definitely doesnt know what she is doing, and this likely the result of bad teacher training.

[vinny]

05:40 PM on 08/24/2011

*is the result...

[weaponx430]

01:51 PM on 08/24/2011

I see this story as a sad commentary on the state of our education today. Kids are not getting the support they need at home or at school, while teaching in America is simply not an honored profession anymore. Teachers are solely blamed for everything that is wrong with our system and blog posts like Ms. Munroe's reflect the frustration felt by all of them. There is no question that she should not have posted this but that does not mean the problems she talked about don't exist. Parents need to help more. I probably would have been held back in Kindergarten if my parents did not help me learn to read. We also need to attract the best and brightest people to the teaching profession- Finland only accepts teachers who are in the top ten percent of their class. Cutting benefits, vacation time, and tenure will make teaching an even less appealing career than it is already.

[rachhh]

10:10 PM on 08/21/2011

I think that the teacher should have NEVER posted her comments to a public place. I’m sure many teachers feel the same way as she does—that her students are lazy, always complaining, always cursing, talking about inappropriate subjects—at least on some days. The kids are bound to get to you, and not everyone loves his or her job. Even though she did not identify her students’ or school’s name, it is definitely risky behavior to post something like that on a public website in today’s day and age. It is even risky to verbalize your thoughts and complaints in a public place, because you never know whether it would get back to them. I understand her frustration, but she definitely mishandled it.

Should she be allowed back in the school? At first I thought yes because every teacher feels like that at some point, and she is entitled to her own opinion. But her behavior is too risky. She clearly hates her job, and in a highly qualified pool of candidates who would die for her job, it is just unfair to keep her. She can easily be replaced. She disrespected her school and students, and how can they respect her now?

[vinny]

05:36 PM on 08/24/2011

actually a lot of states are experiencing teacher shortages.

[LBarRel]

08:58 PM on 08/07/2011

This teacher is teaching in an excellent suburb and school district. I say boot her to a less favorable position and lets see how she handles that.
Lets be honest here, she is complaining about the students being whiners, she is whinning.
We all have bad days at work, buck up.

[Amber Michelle Marshall]

01:47 PM on 08/12/2011

there have been educators in my family for generations & I have also spent time in the classroom...teachers, on average, spend more time w/these kids than their own parents & know their foibles...yes, some of the things she said were wrong (i.e. the garbage worker comment), but, for the most part, she has NAILED IT with,

"My students are out of control," Munroe wrote in another post. "They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying."

The behaviors she describes are the behaviors that I & other educators known to me, at various levels of education (including college/university), have seen & experienced first hand...it has only accelerated over the past decade...

I suggest that if you believe it to be so simple to "buck up", that you go ahead & step into the classroom for a year or try substitute teaching & truly experience what it is to teach. You will definitely learn something about yourself and about the state of our schools.

[LBarRel]

03:04 PM on 08/12/2011

Not my choice of career, but it was her choice.
EVERY job has its difficulties. Lucky for her those difficulities are not on Christmas Eve, summer, nor when there is 10 inches of snow on the ground. I wish teachers would remember that while they may have a difficult job, they have plenty of breaks to refresh. Those breaks are NOT the norm in any other job field.
No employer would tolerate an employee blasting their position in an open format.
So I repeat, she needs to buck up, or change jobs.

[4everGG]

12:57 PM on 08/06/2011

We can talk about whether it was smart for her to put her comments on a blog where anyone--especially computer-smart kids--could find it, but her comments are based in truth, as just about any honest teacher would tell you.

I'm always on my kids' cases about their laziness, their sense of entitlement, their expectation that they should never have to work hard for anything.

I've run into parents who have 3 or 4 kids go through a school, and none of them can seem to stay out of the discipline office or graduate on time.

And there are kids who just don't get that high school is supposed to be a proving ground, preparation for what's to come. The kids who don't get it are the ones who will have your whole class in an uproar with hugely disruptive behaviors that keep everyone off-task and confused. In order to get anything done in that class, you have do constant battle to keep that student in check and not the center of attention. It gets awfully tiring. Some days you do feel like playing hooky just to avoid that struggle.

The American public, however, cannot handle straight talk from teachers about kids because everyone knows that kids' issues are rarely their own. Usually, kids' issues are an extension of their parents', and the last thing American parents want to do is own up to their involvement in the failure of their children.

[bluerednot]

12:28 PM on 08/05/2011

Natalie Munroe, your teacher training is incomplete. Here's some fundamental rules-
(1.) you are the adult - the students may tick you off, but you have to preserve your professionalism & respond as the adult - not as a ticked off child.
(2.) sometime the students will really, really, really tick you off and make you want to slap them and call them names - in which case, see rule #1.

[MarcEdward]

07:11 PM on 08/04/2011

So the lazy, whining students are also crybabies?

[lovesean3]

06:44 PM on 08/04/2011

Though A LOT of today's students are like that, I feel that teachers like this woman are partly to blame! Why would you continue in a career that you clearly despise. There is no possible way that she is teaching to the best of her ability if she complains this much - no wonder her students constantly whine and complain, they probably haven't learned a thing from her.
She also clearly lacks the professionalism needed to be a teacher. I can't believe she agreed to return to that job.

[kid icarus]

01:05 PM on 08/05/2011

My guess is that she wants two things: 1) to stay a teacher because she has positive moments in addition to the stressful ones, and 2) to keep her job because let's face it, this economy sucks and work for English teachers is...limited.

She was venting and was stupid to include her picture on her blog. Her ability to reach students has been compromised and it's very clear that her principal doesn't want her teaching in the building. The anger, confusion, and bitterness brewing inside her has to be overwhelming.

Glad I'm not her.

[Amy Ferguson Weston]

04:34 PM on 08/04/2011

As sad as that is she pretty much nailed today's kids. I have two teenagers of my own and I love them to death, but they definitely but that last paragraph pretty much sums it up nicely.

[noudidnt]

01:48 PM on 08/04/2011

Why doesn't this wy tch find another line of work?

[MarcEdward]

07:11 PM on 08/04/2011

Why should she? She is spot on about many of America's students.

[Dawn Castle]

11:49 AM on 08/06/2011

I agree. If she was not more informed with today's students or the classroom environment before she became a teacher then she made a mistake in choosing her profession. her attitude toward her students will be very obvious in her classroom.

[vicbar88]

01:39 PM on 08/04/2011

I want my children to be taught in a class where the teacher doesn't have to waste valuable time and resources on children who CHOOSE not to participate in education. this is where there needs to be choices - you can go to school and learn or you cna opt out and go to reform school and learn or you can go spend some time in military school. And if you still choose to do none of the three then a judge can decide your fate for you.

[Amy Ferguson Weston]

04:37 PM on 08/04/2011

I totally agree with you. My daughter loves school she loves to learn she received 1 B in her last trimester of 7th grade and she was really disappointed in herself. My son on the other hand has an above average IQ but would much rather do anything else than sit in a classroom. One option that you didn't mention was on-line school.

[vicbar88]

01:27 PM on 08/04/2011

OMG - now not only have we lost freedom of speech we teach that speaking the truth is unacceptable too. What is wrong with this country, this world? We are lower than the low. It's sad, it's frieghtening, and most of all it's sickening.

[noudidnt]

01:49 PM on 08/04/2011

You can say whatever you want, but keeping your jo b is not a right.

[Jane Claymore]

12:02 PM on 08/04/2011

She's right.

[bmc0718]

11:53 AM on 08/04/2011

Love how all these comments bash kids and praise the teacher. There's a little something called tact that she seems to lack. And not all kids are lazy - I have a daughter going into 6th grade and step-son that's a junior on college. Both are diligent students and have worked hard and earned their grades, while being RESPECTFUL to all those around them (teachers and other students alike). And while my kids know that 99% of the time, the teacher is right - if I EVER heard of a teacher talking about children in that manner, which was completely counterproductive and showed a lack of maturity that is almost unfathomable, my children would no longer be in her class.

[iAREamerica]

02:19 AM on 08/05/2011

Here's a thought: Instead of spending countless hours on-line in a pathetic attempt to acquire hundreds of "fans," perhaps you could spare a second or two in talking to your children about what this teacher has said. You might find--if what you say about their diligence is true--that they would whole-heartedly agree with the teacher in this case and could spin countless stories about how their educational time is wasted by those students in her class that have NO value for education whatsoever and whose behavior mirrors pretty closely the way she has describe it.

You'd probably find that, while you're so busy sharing your silly opinions with others and mounting that high-horse you clearly are enamored riding, your own children, if they were truthful and didn't just go along with the student mob in a "I hate the school lunch" fashion, would probably agree with the teacher, and wish you would spend more time supporting her and her colleagues, than the aforementioned lazy whiners that are just taking up space and devouring educational time for learning.

[bmc0718]

09:37 AM on 08/05/2011

Here's a thought - your rant is hilariously hypocritical, as you likely spend more time online than me. And while my comments where general, you go a step further and try to attack not only me but my kids.

What a wonderful, happy, loving person you must be in real life LOL....

[thia1229]

03:48 PM on 08/10/2011

Why not talk to your children about what she said, why you think she said it and that you can respect another’s opinion with out it being your own. Instead of my kid just won’t be in a class with that teacher.