Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


A teacher is no longer with Hartland Consolidated Schools following an incident intended as a joke in conjunction with the Thanksgiving holiday.

On November 21st, the teacher had children dress up like turkeys for a Thanksgiving picture. The district said, unfortunately, the teacher made an ”extremely unwise decision” to also have an image of a hunter with a gun displayed on the interactive board behind them when the picture was taken.

The district said while the decision to arrange the hunter behind the class picture was a “grossly, poor decision”, the teacher then chose to send the picture via text message to some colleagues with the heading “which one should I pick off first”.

The district said staff that received the text immediately notified administration, and proper protocols were followed. It said the text was intended to be a “joke” and it was determined no child was ever in any danger.

The teacher is no longer employed by the district.

The letter from the district is attached.