Vermillion Parish: Arresting a Teacher For Speaking is Nuts!

Lots of people ask me what I have been up to since giving up writing here several times a week. The answer is not much --and that's just the way I like it! I spend a lot of my free time playing video games on an XBox I bought once The Teacher Wars ended a few years ago. I watch a lot of TV. I read. I shop. I bought a cool SUV that I take off road now and again. You know, regular person stuff.

Lately, I have been watching videos with my kid on YouTube. My daughter and I sit a few times a week and go over the top ten trending videos together. They change from day to day. They're usually a fun way to spend some free time and are typically worth a laugh or two. Last week we watched a fairly pointless music video with a dancing robot. This week, we watched a lot of Oprah, oh and a BBC Reporter get mobbed by a group of Lemars. Just super funny, super purposeless, good times with my kid. Such is my life in world since the end of the Ed Wars.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with a teacher from Vermillion Parish who was arrested for speaking against a raise for the superintendent while teachers in her district have received none?

A teacher in Louisiana who attended a school board meeting to question her superintendent's hefty raise was handcuffed and arrested on Monday in an incident recorded by a fellow attendee.

The Vermilion Parish School Board was voting Monday night on Superintendent Jermone Puyau's new contract, which included a $30,000 raise. Deyshia Hargrave, a middle school language arts teacher, stood up and said she had a "serious issue" with Puyau "or any person in a position of leadership getting any type of raise. I feel like it's a slap in the face for the teachers, the cafeteria workers, or any other support staff we have." She was interrupted by a board member who said her comment wasn't part of the night's agenda.

Well, lots, actually. You see, the video depicting the scene made it to the YouTube trending list (currently at the #6). As I write this, it has 2.1 million views. That's has more eyes on it than this strange Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep interview and the newTV Ad for Marvel's Black Panther movie.

That's nuts.


And the roughly fifteen thousand comments are virtually all in support of the teacher, Deyshia Hargrave, who spoke eloquently about how the improvements in her district have been made by the teachers in the classroom.

No that's not nuts. I'm just saying, 15,000 commenters seem to agree.


Way to go, Deyishia! Look us all up next time you're in New York. A bunch of NYC teachers would love to thank you.