FRESNO, California – An elementary school teacher is under investigation after students claim he encouraged them to put duct tape over their mouths during a lesson. The Madera Unified superintendent confirmed that Jack Bush, a teacher at Parkwood elementary school, is being investigated after a 9-year-old student complained to her mother upon arriving home from school last Friday.
The student’s mother, Natalie Kaitangian, told a local reporter that she asked her daughter to explain a possible reason: “I asked her ‘Was it because you were talking?’ She said, ‘No. We were quiet.” She said ‘We were being rewarded.’ And I said that doesn’t make sense to me. She said, ‘It doesn’t make sense to me either. I felt uncomfortable.'”
Kaitangian and her husband, Ray, took their complaint to the principal’s office, where administrators allegedly explained the teacher’s actions by saying the use of duct tape was, indeed, an incentive or reward.
Another mother, Crystal Martinez, actually saved a piece of tape she had to rip off her son’s face. She joined the Kaitangians in the complaint but administrators suggested they take it up with the school district, resulting in a letter that went out Monday.
The Kaitangians removed their daughter from the class, but Martinez decided to leave her son in it for the time being.
School administrators are now issuing bumper stickers with the school’s new slogan:
MY CHILD IS AN HONOR STUDENT AT PARKWOOD ELEMENTARY….
I HAVE THE DUCT TAPE TO PROVE IT