Those of you who live in the Boston area may have heard the story on the news about a teacher striking and killing a student who was walking to school. Well, I don’t watch the local news, and since I have been out of town for a few days, haven’t been reading the paper either. It turns out that the teacher is someone I know. In fact, I had her for a class in middle school. I found out about this after receiving a bulk email from a former high school classmate, who I wasn’t particularly close to. She was upset because she thought that our local news station, WBZ (CBS) 4 had really demonized the teacher unfairly.

I remember clearly the circumstances of me having this teacher. After a few hard unsuccessful weeks in Spanish class, I decided to quit (unlike me, I know,) and instead take a general reading/writing class. So I entered this class late, which, in middle school, is perhaps the greatest mortification. But it all turned out well, and this teacher came to be one of my favorites. Not only was she fun, but she was engaged with her students and always caring. In sum, a first rate teacher.

However, as I’ve done more digging, it turns out there is more to the story. When this accident occurred a few days ago, this teacher was driving to a school in Canton. I wondered why she was no longer in ***ton. Anyway, it turns out that she was asked to leave at the end of last year because of allegations made by a former student of hers. Although it’s nearly impossible to get any details on this, it seems that she took this troubled kid under her wing for counseling. When all was said and done, he was supposedly suicidal and she supposedly had sent him sexually inappropriate emails.

This revelation was, of course, shocking. Although I don’t have the facts, my first guess is that this teacher wanted to help a particularly disturbed kid, he didn’t improve, and ended up blaming her. The parents got involved, the story changed, things were made up, the kid got attention, and the teacher was fired.

So, at this point, my former classmate is asking that we write to WBZ4 giving testimonials about this teacher. I am willing to help in any way, however, I must have some more information before I proceed. I do know that this teacher would never maliciously run over a kid, but I’d like to know a little more about the circumstances surrounding her departure from my middle school.

Regardless, though, this is a shame. First there is this questionable action at one school and she’s forced to leave, then this. This was a quality teacher who perhaps got too involved (non-sexually) with a student. I wonder if this event has caused other teachers at my school to be more wary of acting as counselors to their students, even though we are always told that we can confide in our teachers.

So I’m going to try to get some more information, and if I feel she was innocent and that this accident was just that, then I will certainly write and speak in her favor.