Teacher suspended for blog rant will return to classroom

The Pennsylvania high school teacher who made national news in February, when students and parents discovered her personal blog rant that some of her pupils were "rat-like," lazy and disrespectful, will be back in the classroom this fall.

Reporter Christina Kristofic writes that Natalie Munroe will remain a teacher in the same high school, Central Bucks East, but that the district would not explain why that decision was reached.

Munroe was suspended with pay after writing on her blog that her students were "rude, disengaged, lazy whiners," among other things. She didn't name any individual students, but she blogged under her own first name and featured a photo of herself on the site.

Munroe defended her blog earlier this year by saying she didn't think anyone would ever find it and that she had a right to vent.

"But the fact remains that every year, more and more, students are coming in less willing to work, to think, to cooperate. These are the students I was complaining about in my blog," she told the Courier Times. "The same way millions of Americans go home at the end of the day and complain about select coworkers or clients or other jerks they had to deal with, I came home and complained on my blog about those I had to deal with."

Munroe's lawyer argued that firing her for her blog comments would be in violation of the First Amendment.

A recent graduate of the school, Devon Broglie, told Kristofic he's glad Munroe's returning to her old job. "It's the only way for her to face reality," he said. "The students have heard what she said in her blogs and won't forget it. Her classroom next year will be extremely tough. She has lost the respect needed to control a classroom."

When the scandal broke last winter, teachers debated the perils of having an online presence, which we wrote about here.