Teacher Defends Insulting Blog Posts About Her Students: 'I Hear the Trash Company is Hiring'

Feb. 16, 2011 — -- Teacher Natalie Munroe makes no excuses for writing blog posts about her students which include statements like, "A complete and utter jerk in all ways," "although academically okay your child has no other redeeming qualities," "I hear the trash company is hiring," and "There's no other way to say this, I hate your kid."

"I don't think I did anything wrong," Munroe, a teacher at Central Bucks East High School in Doylestown, Pa., told ABC News.

The 30-year-old teacher used the name "Natalie M" and never identified the name of the school in the posts that also lashed out against other teachers and administrators. But once word got out it was her, the school suspended Munroe with pay.

In one posting on her blog she called her students, "out of contol," and "rude, lazy, disengaged whiners."

In another, she created a list of comments teachers could use on report cards to describe students, like "rat-like," "dresses like a streetwalker," and "frightfully dim."

The school superintendent says her complaints were "very egregious" and "certainly could result in termination." Her blog is being investigated.

When asked if it ever crossed her mind that someone from her school would see her blog, Munroe replied, "No, not really, not ever, in fact, it was up there for over a year, nobody found it."

Munroe said she talked to students she had issues with, but "Nothing ever changes, things are swept under the rug...sometimes things are addressed but they don't change. It's not like I was in my room typing things out and not trying to make changes where they should be made."

"I was writing it not about anyone specific, they were caricatures of students that I've had over the years...it was meant tongue and cheek for myself and my friends, it was not for mass consumption...I'm sorry that it was taken out of context but I stand by what I said," Munroe said.

Is it Munroe's First Amendment Right, Or In Bad Taste?

Munroe's attorney, Steve Rovner, insists that Munroe's first amendment right is being violated.

"There's no Internet policy at her school district. She was free to write and she free to express herself; it was like a personal diary. She didn't do anything wrong – some people don't like what they have to write, but she's being censored for what she wrote," Rovner said.

"Until the school district decides what to do with her, her life is in limbo," Rovner said.

Munroe wants to continue teaching. "I have no plans for a career change," she said.

Munroe says teachers enter the education profession full of life and a desire to change the world, only to get the life beat out of them.

Now, with no regrets she says, let the conversation begin: "I think that if it's going to get out there, maybe it'll start a conversation that needs to be had.