Dr. Phillips High School
A Florida teacher was fired after he asked students to write their own obituaries ahead of a campus active shooter drill.
Jeffrey Keene, a psychology teacher at Dr. Phillips High School, claimed that he used sound judgment in assigning the task to students in the 11th and 12th grades during the first period on Tuesday.
Mr. Keene stated that after learning about the drill on Monday, he believed the students’ obituaries would prompt them to reflect on their lives in the event of a school shooter. “This isn’t a way to upset you or anything like that”, he recalled telling the 35 students.
“It wasn’t to scare them or make them feel like they were going to die, but just to help them understand what’s important in their lives and how they want to move forward with their lives and how they want to pursue things in their journey”, the psychology teacher told the outlet.
Someone was eventually discovered to be dissatisfied with the teacher’s task. Some of Mr. Keene’s students allegedly told him by the second period that they had been questioned by school officials about the obituaries. In the middle of the seventh period, he was informed that he had been fired from his position, which he had started in January.
“What is going on in this environment if you can’t talk to them directly? In my opinion, I have done nothing wrong”, He stated.
In a statement, the Orange County School District said, “Families at Dr. Phillips High School were informed that a teacher assigned an inappropriate assignment about school violence. The probationary employee was terminated after the administration conducted an immediate investigation”.
Mr. Keene told the media that there was no administrative way for him to request a return to his job because he was a new hire and therefore not eligible for membership in the local teachers’ union”.
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