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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Fired Pocatello Teacher Speaks Out

A Pocatello teacher — dismissed, she says, over a photo she posted on her Facebook page — is speaking out and fighting back. Laraine Cook tells the Idaho State Journal that the Pocatello School District is filing paperwork with the State Board of Education to have her teaching license revoked. “I spent four-plus years earning that degree,” Cook told the Journal Thursday. “That’s something I take a lot of pride in. To have that taken away for one picture, that’s hard because I worked really hard for that. That’s several years of work, money and time. I’m pretty proud of that degree. To have that taken away because of this, I’m hurt by it. I’m a little frustrated aby it.” District spokeswoman Shelley Allen declined comment. ... Cook, a teacher and girls basketball coach at Pocatello High School, was dismissed in October, after a photo surfaced that showed her fiancé, Tom Harrison, touching her clothed chest. Harrison, the school’s football coach, was reprimanded over the photo/Kevin Richert, The EDge, IdahoED News. More here.

Question: Should the fiance have been fired, too? Or should both have been simply reprimanded?



D.F. Oliveria
D.F. (Dave) Oliveria joined The Spokesman-Review in 1984. He currently is a columnist and compiles the Huckleberries Online blog and writes about North Idaho in his Huckleberries column.

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