A school district employee in Maryland claims she has been fired for correcting one student’s spelling error over Twitter.
Katie Nash, who ran the Frederick County Public School System’s social media pages, was allegedly let go after she engaged in lighthearted banter with a student on Twitter, according to The Frederick News-Post.
On January 5th, a student called “Nathan” tweeted to school district’s Twitter account, @FCPSMaryland, telling schools to close “tammarow.” In response to the tweet, Nash wrote from the school’s account: “But then how would you learn how to spell ‘tomorrow?’ :)”
The reaction to her Tweet? More than 1,000 retweets and 1,000 likes and the burgeoning hashtag #KatiefromFCPS. After the reports that Twitter access was taken away from Nash, hashtag #FreeKatie appeared on the students’ feeds.
The sentiment, however, wasn’t shared by the school district that employs Nash. On Friday, she says she was was called into a meeting and then abruptly fired, despite that the student who made the spelling mistake didn’t mind her response.
A district spokesperson, Michael Doerrer, confirmed that Nash is no longer employed by the school district, but he didn’t elaborate on the circumstances.
While the ex-employee of the Frederick County Public School System said she understands the decision by her employer, she noted that “As a new employee, I think I sort of would have expected that there would have been some counseling or some suggestions on how to improve.”
“Any social media manager is looking for increasing engagement, and that’s sort of the expected parameter. I think a conversation about how we engage with students would have been completely appropriate and I would have welcomed that,” she added.
On her personal Twitter feed, she wrote: “Wish success for FCPS, students deserve the best. Don’t regret a tweet. #katiefromFCPS says do ur homewurk – no one takes away ur education”
