Editorial Team
A substitute teacher has been suspended and removed from a Texas high school after reportedly instructing drama students to put on a really dark puppet show, various outlets including My San Antonio and San Antonio Express News report.
It happened on April 19 during a theater arts class at Johnson High School. Some students said at least one puppet had to be murdered, while others said the puppet show would have to depict a mass shooting.
Conflicting reports make it difficult to determine the exact details (and purpose) of the assignment, but administrators at Hays Consolidated Independent School District say the man will not be invited back (even though they don’t suspect him of any ‘nefarious intent’).
“Either way, assigning or allowing this type of performance, if proved to have occurred, would be disturbing and unacceptable conduct for an educator in Hays CISD,” the district said in a news release.
“The investigation has not been able to determine which of the conflicting accounts of the assignment is correct, whether it was for puppets to be murdered or be part of a death scene similar to a Shakespearean play,” Hays CISD wrote in a separate statement. “One group of students did perform a brief scene involving a mass shooting.”
