On Wednesday the North Penn School District issued a statement, apologizing for a teacher who was caught on a photo taping a medical mask to a child’s face. It called her actions “unacceptable.”
“An image taken in one of our classrooms last week and circulating on social media does not represent the universal values that the North Penn School District strives to instill in both our students and staff,” the district commented in a statement obtained by The Philadelphia Inquirer. An investigation showed that the incident was isolated and the teacher intended no harm, but her actions were entirely “inappropriate” and “unacceptable,” the school stated.
The district also said it was addressing the issue with the teacher, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the school’s employee would be fired or face any disciplinary action.
The incident involving a teacher fixing a medical mask to a child’s face with tape took place on Monday at Pennfield Middle School in Hatfield, North Pennsylvania. The act was caught on a photo shared on social media by the group “North Penn Stronger Together.”
“Pro-mask or anti-mask, I hope we can all agree that taping masks to children’s faces crosses the LINE. This was not a joke for the child or the parents,” read the Facebook post.
This issue caused a flurry of nearly 500 outraged comments calling for the teacher to get fired. The group appealed to the district to take action against such misconduct and invited community members to voice their opinion at a Thursday school board meeting.
The student’s mother anonymously reached out to the media on Thursday, saying their family didn’t want any part of that. In an exclusive statement released to local news outlet North Penn Now, she expressed concern that the situation has grown out of control and that she only wanted to share the photo with a local group to gain support before the board meeting.