Teacher Fired For Quoting a Verse From the Bible to Student-Truth!
Summary of eRumor:
This is a forwarded email that said Walter Tutka, a substitute teacher in Phillipsburg, N.J was fired by the school board for sharing and discussing a verse from the Bible with a high school student.
The Truth:
The Phillipsburg school board in New Jersey voted 8 to 0, with three abstaining, to terminate and removed Walter Tutka from substitute teachers list for the 2012 to 2013 academic year despite protests from a huge number of supporters who spoke to the school board on behalf of Tutka. This according to a January 14, 2013 article by WFMZ-TV News in Allentown, PA.
The article said that earlier last fall, Tutka quoted a passage from the book of Matthew saying, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last” to a student who was the last to the classroom. After the student inquired about the passage seven times of the teacher, Tutka showed him the source of the verse from his own personal copy of the New Testament.
The article also said, “The school board and administration offered very little information upon voting to terminate Tutka, citing the issue as a confidential personnel matter. When asked by members of the public to give specific reasons for Tutka’s firing, legal counsel for the board would only say that ‘the board will not comment on personnel matters.'”
updated 01/17/13