A Staten Island middle-school teacher is under fire for an anti-Trump fill-in-the-blank question on vocabulary homework, reports the New York Post.
Annadale dad Vincent Ungro complained of political bias after his 11-year-old daughter asked for homework help.
One question read: “President Trump speaks in a very superior and _________ manner insulting many people. He needs to be more __________ so that the American people respect and admire him.”
The next question was: “Barack Obama set a _________ when he became the first African American president.”
“Haughty,” “humble” and “precedent” were the correct answers on a vocabulary list.
Ungro told his daughter to skip the questions and wrote a note to her teacher, Adria Zawatsky. “Please keep your political views to yourself and do not try to influence my children on them. Thank you,” he wrote.
Zawatsky took 15 points off for the three blank answers, lowering Ungro’s daughter’s grade to an 85.
The teacher responded to the irate father, writing that, “I do not believe I was expressing a political view at all on my vocabulary sheet. My reference to President Trump was about his personality traits rather than his ability as a president.” She added, “The media is nonstop on very similar references. This is considered freedom of speech and I feel I have the same right as they do.”
A teacher for more than 20 years, Zawatsky doesn’t seem to understand that her free-speech rights don’t extend to mandatory class assignments.
Intermediate School 75 Principal Kenneth Zapata put a disciplinary letter in Zawatsky’s file.