Park City junior high teacher on leave for telling class to read 'hateful' anti-Trump song
(KUTV) — A group of parents whose children attend Treasure Mountain Junior High in Park City said they are appalled by anti-Trump song lyrics an English teacher allegedly told her students to read in class last week.
Melinda Colton, spokesperson for the Park City School District told 2News the teacher just made a “bad decision.”
“The teacher selected an Eminem song, used the lyrics, and her point was to illustrate that there are biases out there," Colton said. "There are biases in society, current events. So she wanted to use something that was current.”
The song is called "Like Home" and students and parents complained due to the “hatred” expressed in the lyrics.
“It crosses that line of our teachers not being political in nature and even though she said this is not meant to be political in nature this is simply to illustrate a point and not all the students understood that,” Colton said.
The school district said the teacher did plan to counteract the lesson on the lyrics with the opposite lesson the next day, but there were so many complaints, she never got the chance.
Colton said the district received a "handful" of complaints from students and parents of the 140 in the suspended teacher's classes.
"We have a handful of complaints from all those different classes but, again, one complaint is too many,” Colton said.
The teacher, who was not named by the school district, has been placed on leave for the remainder of the school year, which ends Wednesday.
