Madeline Luciano, an 8th grade teacher at P.S. 18 in Inwood, was fired last October after investigators determined that she had committed misconduct during an incident in which she had students publicly declare reasons why they didn’t like a bullied student, according to DNAinfo. Luciano appealed her firing in a petition filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court last week, saying that her punishment was too harsh (she is currently barred from applying for jobs with the city Department of Education until December, and after that her record of misconduct will be reviewed as part of any application).
On June 4 of last year, a student with a history of being bullied returned to Luciano’s class from the principal’s office. She noticed that her bag was missing and told Luciano. When they found it, it was turned inside out and pages of one of the books were torn. Luciano then asked the class what happened, and when students responded that they didn’t like the girl, she gave the students a so-called assignment: write a letter about why they felt so negatively toward their classmate. The students then started yelling out reasons like she’s “ugly” and “she annoys people.”
When the girl started crying, Luciano says she realized she made a mistake and called off the assignment. The DNAinfo story is unclear about Luciano’s motives and what she was trying to accomplish. According to the DOE’s report, she said, “[the class] needed to work as a team and that they needed to treat each other with love.”
ANIMAL reached out to a person we believe to be Madeline Luciano on Facebook for comment, but she has not responded as of press time.
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