Fort Worth teacher’s job on the line after Twitter rant against illegal immigration

An English teacher whose Twitter posts against immigration sparked a backlash on social media faces termination, according to a June 4 meeting agenda for the Fort Worth school board.

Georgia Clark was placed on administrative leave with pay from the Fort Worth school district Thursday after officials said she directed a string of anti-immigrant comments to President Donald Trump on Twitter.

Clark became the center of school district officials’ attention after a Twitter account using her name began to spark outrage Tuesday evening and into early Wednesday morning. People had been circulating a series of tweets from the account that asked Trump to crack down on immigration at Carter-Riverside High School.

One tweet listed her phone numbers and asked Trump to help remove “illegals from Fort Worth.”

The district’s nine-member school board will deliberate Clark’s employment during a closed session of Tuesday’s meeting.

Under a list of items to be taken up in open session, the agenda includes: “Take Action to Approve the Proposed Termination of Georgia N. Clark’s Continuing Contract for Good Cause.”

The district was not commenting on the agenda issue Thursday.

On Wednesday, the Carter-Riverside’s school website listed Georgia Clark as faculty in English language arts. By late morning, Fort Worth schools had placed Clark on paid administrative leave after it was determined the account belonged to her and that she made the posts.

The account, which used the handle @rebecca1939, was deleted by early Wednesday afternoon. A message left Wednesday at one of two numbers posted on Clark’s account was not immediately returned. By Wednesday afternoon, that number no longer worked. The other number was changed to an unknown new number.

Superintendent Kent P. Scribner issued voice and email messages to parents Wednesday evening in Spanish and English regarding the case and social media use by staff. He told parents the district is focused on teaching students while treating them with dignity and respect.

“As we conclude the school year this Friday, please know we take this promise very seriously, and your child’s safety and well-being are always our number-one priority,” he said in the statement.

This issue sparked social media debate on several fronts from whether the teacher’s posts were racist to whether she has a right to express her views under the First Amendment.

The issue can be complex for teachers.

Teachers are expected to abide by the district’s employee standards of conduct, according to district policy. Employees are held responsible for their public conduct because they are role models to students.

Employees are held to the same professional standards in their public use of electronic media and are held responsible for content posted on personal social media accounts.

“If an employee’s use of electronic media interferes with the employee’s ability to effectively perform his or her job duties, the employee is subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment,” district policy states.

But teachers are also allowed to express their views.

The Texas Association of School Boards states that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that employees don’t lose their First Amendment rights when they enter a school. School systems have “a high degree of control” when the speech is work related.

When speech is protected, districts can’t retaliate against employees, according to TASB.

“On the other hand, when an employee’s speech does not have First Amendment protection, the employee may receive a reprimand, change of assignment, or even dismissal as a result of speech, in accordance with other law and policy.”

Almost all districts have social media conduct policy in their employee handbooks, said Rob D’Amico, spokesman for the Texas branch of the national teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers.

And teachers do have free speech rights, which includes the right to engage in political speech, D’Amico said in an emailed statement.

“But decisions have leaned heavily against teachers and for districts for anything that creates a “disruption” to the learning/school environment,” D’Amico said. “So something that a teacher posted that was public and could be known to cause great anger among the school community/parents, etc., could fall into that.”

This story was originally published May 30, 2019 at 4:46 PM.