Friday, August 29, 2014

Bay Area Teacher Tweets About Wanting to Stab Students By Damian Trujillo and NBC Bay Area Staff

A Bay Area teacher has been reprimanded after she reportedly tweeted that she wanted to stab some students and that her "trigger finger is itchy." Cheryl Hurd reports.

Friday, Aug 29, 2014

A teacher in California's Bay Area has been reprimanded after she reportedly tweeted that she wanted to stab some students and that her "trigger finger is itchy."

The Oakland Tribune reported Newark Memorial High School administrators disciplined teacher Krista Hodges with a written reprimand, but she remains in the classroom as the new school year begins. The tweets, which were sprinkled with obscene language, were posted before the end of the last school year, in June. The tweets have since vanished from her account.

Some parents said they found the posts insulting. One tweet allegedly insinuated that Hodges wanted to dump hot coffee on some of her students.

[BAY] Newark Teacher Reportedly Tweets She Wants to "Stab Some Kids"

A Bay Area teacher reportedly wrote that she wanted to stab some kids and that her trigger finger is itchy. NBC Bay Area's Damian Trujillo is live at Newark Memorial High School with the latest on the posts that have some parents furious.

“I have a student here. He was expelled when he was a freshman for saying something to a teacher. They kicked him out of school. So now this is going on with this teacher, and I don’t feel it’s acceptable," parent Angela Newell said. “I feel that she should be able to receive the same punishment he did – get expelled from the district.”

Hodges told the newspaper she has apologized, saying she was only kidding, and realizes she acted unprofessionally.

The district had no comment on the issue, but one parent told NBC Bay Area on Thursday that she plans to start a campaign to get the teacher fired.

"I know the kids love her, but I think she should be fired," parent Vanessa Chavez said. "She should not work in the school -- it's not OK, it's unacceptable."

On Twitter, fittingly, Hodges appeared Thursday to be getting some support from students, including one who wrote that the "tweets were blown up into a bigger deal than what it was. Everyone vents."

Meanwhile, the Newark Police Department is taking the incident seriously and investigating.

"I think the concern is safety of everybody -- the admin, students, teacher, faculty," Cmdr. Mike Carroll said. "Concerned about everybody's safety. It doesn't matter where the threat is coming from."