Teacher Details How She Was Reported to Board of Education for Reading Poetry Book To Second Graders: ‘It Was Just a Poem About Freedom’

Podcast host and teacher Lauran Woolley says she got reported to the Board of Education for reading to her former second-grade class a poem about freedom.

Speaking on this week’s episode of Teachers Off Duty, Woolley and co-host Briana Richardson spoke candidly about dealing with parents and students.

“Kids do come home and tell you stuff that you’re like, ‘Oh, I know they didn’t.’ You know? And so you gotta, you gotta check it out. But some of the stuff they be telling y’all — come on, it’s outrageous,” Richardson said.

“Call the teacher. Just ask,” Woolley added.

“Communicate with us,” Richardson said. “I had a kid like straight-up lie to his mama, like to her face and the mom did not call me. She didn’t try to reach out to me. She didn’t communicate. She was talking to the teacher next door about me. — So I reached out to the parent and I was like, ‘Hey, like, you know, this is what’s going on.’ The parent was cool but like at first, like you believed your son for something that I literally did not do.”

Woolley followed this with her own story of teaching a second-grade class, saying, “That happened to me, my very first year of teaching, I had a student, who went home and told their parents that — they were having nightmares because of the book I read to them in class.”

She added, “They didn’t even call me or contact me. They went straight to the Board of Education And they were like, ‘She’s giving my student nightmares because she’s reading inappropriate books in school.'”

Woolley explained that she read the book as a part of Black History Month. The poem was regarding a slave longing for freedom.

“It had nothing like violent or inappropriate. Like it was, it was just a poem about dreaming about freedom,” Woolley added.

She then recalled discussing the situation with her principal who wanted to know where Woolley got the book. “She goes, ‘Where did you get it?’ And I’m like ‘The children’s public library.'”

Woolley then called the parent to discuss the issue. “So I called the parent and she was like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I must have overreacted. I called the board because I have a friend who’s on the board.'”

Richardson clarified the type of relationship parents and teachers should have when it comes to issues in the classroom. “Here’s the deal. I have a three-year-old who’s going to pre-K next year. — If there’s a problem with her at school, I’m gonna call her teacher and we gonna communicate, I ain’t fixin’ to just run up on the teacher,” Richardson clarified.

“So we want your feelings to be validated as parents, but also let’s communicate with each other instead of y’all just running up on us crazy,” she concluded.

Listen above via Teachers Off Duty.