Meet Ryan Haraughty, the Mission Valley Middle School teacher at the center of the Florida-centric donnybrook which seems to be consuming the Kansas City media. The picture comes from his Facebook profile, which — for the moment, at least — is a public listing on the KCMO network. This is the final respite you shall receive in this whole affair, because it’s about to get crazy.
Okay, so Haraughty was fired today. However — and this is a matter of some dispute — he may or may not have had a dispute with the principal of MVMS. The district’s official statement is that such a contention is false, but students seem to disagree. Here is an online petition calling for a no-confidence vote in the board. So far it has a meager 110 signatures (as of 12:22 a.m. Thursday), but it’s still worth noting.
Even more importantly, here are two Facebook pages in support of the deposed biology overlord. The first is a fake person named “BringBack TheHaraughty” — those clever kids! — and it looks like it’s closed to the public. The second and more impressive one is entitled “Ryan Haraughty Appreciation Society of America,” and it contains some comment gems. Among them, all sic:
Ryan Haraughty = The biggest badass this world has ever seen.
hey mr haraughty, remeber when you had me explain to the class when its okay to masturbate?!
good timesJust so you know mr. haraughty, i don’t appreciate that little note you wrote in my year book. I thought you knew me better than that…
Mr. Haraughty’s the shit
OK EVERYONE LISTEN UP!!! IF WE WANT MR. HARAUGHTY BACK WE HAVE TO GET OUR PARENTS TO WRITE LETTERS TO OSTMEYER AND THE DISTRICT!!
Goodness Gracious no! Someone is acknowledging sexuality to teenagers? Quick, someone must be fired!
(From “Paul Gorelick,” a self-described parent):
It needs to be said again and again and again, even if I start to become annoying. To all of you reading this, SPEAK OUT. Let your voices be heard! Let the board know. Let the adminsitration know. Let the district know. Let everyone know….Students, a simple symbol, a white piece of paper with an H on it pinned to clothes. A quiet effective statement.
Oh, and for a fun added bonus: there’s a Twitter page dedicated (kind of) to resolving the situation.
Among the comments on the online petition (read the list of signers here):
POOP ON OSTMEYERS HEAD
Go ahead! I love you and hate the principle! Good job!
This principal needs to learn how to do her job. Her efforts on talking with my brother, who is an excellent teacher, were paltry. Her job is to work with the teachers not attack them.
The vendetta again Mr. H continues from Ms Ostmeyer. I am gravely disappointed in how the SM Board dismissed any emails/comments/petitions presented to them.
Yes, that second-to-last one is actually from one “Brandon John Haraughty,” brother of the teacher in question.
So what do we really know about Mr. Haraughty, aside from a) he was popular with students, and b) he made a regrettable remark in class? Well, here’s his official (and rather busy) SMSD page, which includes these pictures:
So he likes fish. And flowers, I guess. His Facebook page includes:
Favorite quotation: “You Spell It H-A-R NAUGHTY without the n”
Indeed. And his “About Me” section? “I am the coolest.”
We’ll see how this plays out. We admire the students’ dedication to their teacher, though there’s no denying the remark in question was not the wisest one. And what to make of the district’s statement that this was just the latest in a long line of such incidents? Who knows?
Public education: it never gets old.
[...] 12, 2009 by McKay Late last night we wrote a bit about the escalation of Floridagate, and now the rest of the KC media is jumping on the bandwagon. [...]
[...] by McKay Things are really getting out of hand over at Mission Valley Middle School, site of Floridagate and now the epicenter of a JoCo revolution. Via the Prime Buzz blog (who very kindly welcomed us [...]
H-MAN FOR THE WIN!!!!!!!