Buster
Florida Teacher Who Mocked Looks, Brains Of His Students Now On Firing Line
A Florida school superintendent is seeking to fire a middle school teacher for repeatedly denigrating the looks and intelligence of his students, according to a termination letter.
The charges against Robert Fine are contained in a letter drafted this month by Heather Fiorentino, who heads the Pasco county school board. The October 5 missive notes that Fine has been involved in troubling classroom incidents dating back four years.
Fine, 65, holds a teacher certification for “General Science, (grades 5-9),” according to Florida Department of Education records.
Despite being reprimanded, Fine has continued using “sarcasm and demeaning humor” when interacting with students, reported Fiorentino, whose letter cited several examples of inappropriate classroom behavior, including:
* Remarking on one girl’s appearance, Fine told her, “Honey, you look bad every day. Pages will be turning in the yearbook and mirrors will be smashing.”
* A girl told school officials that when she had the hiccups, Fine suggested that she “go into the restroom and look into the mirror and ‘scare’ the hiccups away.”
* Other students reported an incident where “a male student called out in class when a female student was unable to answer a question” Fine had posed to her. The teacher responded by telling the girl that she was a “great ventriloquist,” noting that, “I asked you a question and you made the answer come out of the dummy in the back.”
During a meeting last month with school brass, Fine defended himself as an “equal opportunity picker-oner” whose own wife had to remind him to “stop tailgating the students.”
Fine, who said that he used sarcasm and humor to build rapport with students, was told by school administrators that his classroom behavior “led to a significant number of parents requesting that their children be moved” from his class.
Fine has appealed his termination and is scheduled for a November 6 hearing before the Pasco County school board.
While Fine’s behavior is disconcerting, he does not compare to this unhinged Canadian educator.
