The McKinney, Texas pool-party debacle has certainly prompted plenty of controversial views from citizens. Now one Texas schoolteacher has apologized after posting a status to Facebook declaring that she almost wanted segregation back because of the incident, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reports.
According to the news site, Karen Fitzgibbons, a teacher at Bennett Elementary School, part of the Frenship Independent School District, deleted her controversial post on Wednesday evening—a day after she made the publicly viewable post to her Facebook page. However, the damage had already been done.
“I’m going to just go ahead and say it … the blacks are the ones causing the problems and this ‘racial tension.’ I guess that’s what happens when you flunk out of school and have no education. I’m sure their parents are just as guilty for not knowing what their kids were doing; or knew it and didn’t care. I’m almost to the point of wanting them all segregated on one side of town so they can hurt each other and leave the innocent people alone. Maybe the 50s and 60s were really on to something. Now, let the bashing of my true and honest opinion begin….GO! #imnotracist #imsickofthemcausingtrouble #itwasatagedcommunity,” the Facebook post read, according to the Avalanche-Journal.
The teacher also opined that she didn’t feel that now-former McKinney Police Cpl. David Eric Casebolt should have had to resign after he was captured on video tossing a teenage girl to the ground and restraining her with his full body weight, as well as drawing his service weapon on other teens.
When asked about the post, an FISD representative told the news site that such incidents are “taken very seriously.”
Fitzgibbons, however, is now insisting that the incendiary message “was not directed at any one person or group.”
“It was not an educational post; it was a personal experience post,” Fitzgibbons said, according to the news site, adding that she had a personal connection to the incident in McKinney, although she would not explain how. She also said that she had “apologized to the appropriate people.”
The teacher hopes that since she has apologized and removed her post, the controversy will now blow over, according to the site. She declined to say whether she has been in contact with the school district regarding the post. A school district official confirmed that Fitzgibbons was a fourth-grade teacher at the elementary school, but would not say whether she would face any disciplinary action.
“Matters such as this are taken very seriously regarding our employees’ social media use,” Andy Penney, director of public relations and information for the school district, said. “That’s the whole reason we have policies and procedures in place.”
The Avalanche-Journal notes that FISD policy states that “if any employee’s use of electronic media interferes with the employee’s ability to effectively perform his or her job duties, the employee is subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.”
Read more at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.