Shirley Bunn: 'Teacher Of The Year' Suspended For Offensive Comment, Telling Hispanic Student To 'Go Back To Mexico'

Looks like this two-time "Teacher of the Year" will not be in the running to win the esteemed honor this year because of her derogatory comment to a Hispanic student: "Go back to Mexico."

Instead, 63-year-old Texas math teacher Shirley Bunn is fighting to keep her job.

Bunn made the comment on Sept. 30 while distributing Title 1 forms to her eighth grade students at Barnett Junior High School. Dallas-Fort Worth's Fox 4 reports that a disruptive student requested a Spanish-language version of the form, saying, "I'm Mexican. I'm Mexican."

According to public record, Bunn attempted to tell the student that he could retrieve forms translated into Spanish from the main office, but the student continued to repeat "I'm Mexican."

Bunn quickly responded, "[Then] go back to Mexico."

The school board placed Bunn on paid leave following the incident, until an Independent Hearing Examiner could review the case.

Late Wednesday, the examiner, Jess Rickman III, recommended that the school board allow Bunn to return to her post. In his 23-page opinion, Rickman determined that the district did not provide sufficient grounds for termination.

"Under the circumstances when taken in the context of the moment and the lack of intent for 'Go back to Mexico' to be a racially or nationality-based pejorative remark, I find it was not a remark of an egregious nature," Rickman said, Fox 4 reports.

Since Rickman's opinion is just a recommendation, the school board could still reject it and permanently terminate Bunn, who has taught at Barnett since 1999.

"It was almost instantaneous. I thought, 'God, I don't believe that came out of my mouth,'" Bunn told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

"It was a very, very hard week, the end of six weeks. It was late in the day. It was a Friday. We were on the third day of the first curriculum assessment and I knew it wasn't going well. It was just an extremely bad day," Bunn said.

The school board is expected to decide Bunn’s fate before next month.

See Fox 4's report below.

Comments

[TakeThePen]

12:54 PM on 05/23/2012

I'd give her another teacher of the year award.

[davidspeicher]

06:39 AM on 04/25/2012

Well if can not understand English then he needs to go to school where they speak his language. This is AMERICA we speak English in our schools and learn Spanish as an elective not the other way around. If you do not like our country then LEAVE if you wnat to stay learn English.

[MissIndependentLady]

05:56 PM on 04/24/2012

He was being disruptive so I don't blame her for making the comment she made. It would have been worse if she said it out of nowhere and the student was born in America but was of Mexican descent.

[Miguel Estrada]

01:11 AM on 04/16/2012

I am Mexican too and find that what she did was 100% perfectly fine. That student should be in a class with other students that do not know the English language and not had special treatment. If you are in this country learn the language as I did and stop making everything and everyone seem like they are out to be racist.

[Radwa Mon]

12:32 AM on 04/07/2012

Mrs.Bunn was an awesome teacher i went to tutoring for algebra and she did everything to make sure i could understood what i was doing. yess i know she shouldnt have said that but you go to understand that not everyone is perfect. and also she was the BEST algebra teacher now since shes gone i think none of us will pass our EOC. (End of Coarse Test) thanks to the people who made her leave. :/

[Deborah Miles Gessell]

09:48 AM on 03/28/2012

one should really know how to speak English if you are going to live in America.

[smokaah]

07:04 PM on 03/13/2012

Im sure this woman deals with all kinds of crap from kids all day Mexican and White, I think it was innocent enough.

[xtranger3]

05:11 AM on 03/08/2012

Deport all 12 million ILLEGALS and their kids now!

[judithduhh]

05:29 PM on 03/14/2012

I'm not going anywhere :) You can leave if it bothers you.

[davidspeicher]

06:41 AM on 04/25/2012

So if you are illegal then why do you not try to become legal?

[Carleen Ward Burns]

07:32 AM on 03/05/2012

Apparently, this isn't the only time she's made racist remarks! She referred to a group of male Mexican students as the "Mexican Mafia." Bad day or not, a teacher has an obligation to uplift students or get to the core of the issue and try to calm them. If they can not do that, you send them to the office. He should have been sent there to get his form anyway.

[davidspeicher]

06:42 AM on 04/25/2012

But how can you send a kid to the office that does not speak English if he can not understand you?

[Carleen Ward Burns]

07:01 AM on 04/25/2012

If you work every day with Hispanic speaking students, you pick up enough phrases or are told what to say by your administration. Also, she could have asked another student that she knows speaks both to help escort this kid.

[Alana Coons]

03:12 PM on 03/04/2012

How about this teacher going back to the rock she crawled out from under.

[davidspeicher]

06:44 AM on 04/25/2012

Your name says it all. It sounds like you are use to being under a rock.

[Dino James Flores]

08:49 PM on 03/03/2012

Oh now everyone needs to calm down on this topic. She has proven for years that she is a good teacher that is obviously well respected by her peers and by her students. It sounds like to me, that this young man was obviously trying to antagonize her and yeah, she let it get the best of her and she acted out in words. But seriously how bad were those words?

She gave him instructions as to what to do if he needed the forms in Spanish and that should have been enough, but no, this kid tries to push the limits and the teacher is only human and she voiced her frustration and echoed what so many of us would like to say, but we are all way too busy in trying to remain politically correct. I applaud you Ms. Bunn because I would have said the same thing and even more.... and by the way I am Mexican.

[Vic619]

10:10 AM on 03/05/2012

I agree.. Im also hispanic

[Steven Matherly]

06:10 PM on 03/03/2012

I agree this woman should be fired for what she said. The first thing to do is to have her union representative talk to the school district and set up a meeting. Then there should be some arbitration and the details of her contract will guide the process from there.

Wait a minute, my wife just told me that they don't have unions in Texas. That can't be true, can it? Oh well, I guess she's on her own.

[xnlover]

04:38 PM on 03/03/2012

Unless something was cut from her comments, Ms. Bunn did not apologize for the remark, and I believe an apology to the student in question is called for. The closest she came to an apology - according to what was quoted in the article - was "God, I don't believe that came out of my mouth!" That shows that at least she knew it was a bad thing to have said. Had she had her wits about her that day, she might have apologized on the spot to the student and sought to calm him/her (it's unclear whether the student was male or female), but she didn't. However, as she apparently has a record of having been an excellent teacher, it would be a gross overreaction to fire her. However, the apology to the student is an appropriate demand to make of her under the circumstances. (It should also be noted that junior-high aged kids of whatever cultural background can be pretty difficult to deal with; so critics of the teacher need to cut her some slack, unless they themselves always act appropriately when under stress. "Let the one who is without sin among us cast the first stone.")

[davidspeicher]

06:47 AM on 04/25/2012

Maybe she does not speak spanish and if she apologized in English he would not understand so why make the attempt?

[Got2Go]

04:09 PM on 02/27/2012

Good teachers such as Miss Bunn are hard to come by. We the american people should not tolerate people who are playing our system.

[Got2Go]

03:58 PM on 02/27/2012

The hispanics are dumb alright! Dumb as foxes! they know how to play the system.