Superintendent told principals to talk about Capitol riot as ‘teachable moment’
“I’m not going to tell you what to think, I just want to help you think,” Principal Barton Thorne told Cordova High School students last month, a few days after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
His recorded video message, which plays weekly in homeroom, went on to explain the threat of social media platforms deciding who gets to speak. President Trump and many of his supporters had been removed from their accounts, and the competing social media platform Parler removed from its web host, in the wake of the riot.
Tennessee’s Shelby County Schools quickly put Thorne (above) on administrative leave and opened a disciplinary investigation for “professional misconduct.” Thorne’s lawyers demanded the district immediately reinstate him and “publicly apologize for suggesting his actions were inappropriate.”
[…]
