School Kids Get Lesson In Obscenity All Scrawl Profanity In Effort To Find Whose Handwriting Matches Vandal’s

Parents are outraged after learning that 25 of their children, fourth-graders in a north Spokane school, spent time in class writing an obscene word.

After discovering the word scrawled in chalk on a table in her Holmes Elementary School classroom, a student teacher tried to catch the graffiti artist by conducting an impromptu handwriting comparison.

All the kids wrote the word on scraps of paper, school officials said.

Instead of catching the student, the low-brow sleuthing sparked parent complaints and a written apology by school officials, which will be sent home with students today.

“You don’t spend 10 years telling a child not to say (dirty words) to have a teacher one day tell them to write it down,” said Sara Ellard, whose 9-year-old daughter Ashley was upset by the incident last Tuesday.

Spokane School District officials have removed the student teacher from the classroom. The district and the student’s adviser at Eastern Washington University are considering disciplinary action.

“There is no two ways about it - the student teacher screwed up,” said district spokesman Hugh Davis.

The student teacher, Rhonda Rodrigues, 23, is planning to graduate in June from the EWU teacher-training program.

Last week’s incident happened during an afternoon math lesson. It started when Rodrigues saw a profanity - a synonym for sexual intercourse - scribbled in chalk on a table.

While teacher Mary Hageman was out of the room, Rodrigues told the students to put their heads down on their desks and give a thumbs-up sign if they wrote the profanity.

No one confessed.

Rodrigues threatened to take away recess privileges until a student confessed, but still no one did.

According to school officials, students then suggested writing the obscene word so the handwriting could be compared - an idea Rodrigues put into action.

Rodrigues, however, said she didn’t realize what the students were writing until it was too late. When she saw what they had written, she threw the paper away.

“I feel sorry that I made the mistake and I wouldn’t do it again,” she said Monday, “but I didn’t make them do anything.”

Ashley Ellard told her mother that she didn’t want to write the word but “felt coerced into doing it.”

“When she wrote it down, she felt dirty,” said Sara Ellard, also a teacher trainee at EWU. “I’m just glad she didn’t ask what it meant.”

Other irate parents have arranged conferences with Hageman and Rodrigues.

Teresa Ackerman, whose 9-year-old daughter Jessica is in the class, said the incident reinforced the shock value of obscene language.

“It made every kid remember the word,” said Ackerman. “They all know now how to spell it.”

Ellard complained the next day to Holmes Principal Brad Lundstrom, who apologized. But district administrators did not remove Rodrigues from the classroom or issue a written apology until a newspaper reporter asked about the incident.

Hageman refused to comment.

District administrator Laurie Dolan said Rodrigues realizes she made a mistake and is “seeing her career flash in front of her eyes.”

Dolan said the appropriate reaction would have been to ignore the profanity and continue with the math lesson.

Letting students set rules and punishments for classroom incidents, however, is a common teaching strategy, Dolan said.

The strategy gives the students “more stake” in following rules, she said.

Rodrigues is one step from obtaining a teaching certificate. She already has watched a classroom for a quarter and completed a training class that covered professional conduct.

Ellard said she and her husband, frustrated with the quality of Ashley’s instruction before the incident, are transferring Ashley to another Spokane school.

“This was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she said.

, DataTimes