PHILADELPHIA — The Coatesville Area School District has fired a middle school teacher who put a piece of tape reading “I have nothing nice to say” on a student’s face last month — an action the district described as humiliating to the child, but that the teacher defended as an ill-conceived joke.
At a meeting Tuesday night, the district’s school board voted 7-1 to dismiss Audra Ritter, a special education and English language arts teacher at North Brandywine Middle School. Board members did not discuss the dismissal.
According to the district, Ritter — who is also president of the district’s teachers union — placed a piece of duct tape on the nose of an agitated student on May 4 with the message: “I have nothing nice to say.”
