American teacher told not to use disciplinary wheel

Seattle: A Washington state

high school teacher has been warned not to have students spin a disciplinary

“Wheel of Misfortune” to assign punishments for mis

behaviour that included being pelted with rubber balls by fellow students, school officials said. The Stevenson High School science teacher used the wheel to punish “low- level misconduct” instead of sending the

students to lunch- time detention, Superintendent Dan Read wrote in a letter

to parents on Thursday. Results from a third- party investigation on Wednesday

showed the teacher’s spinning punishment prop to be “inappropriate, but wellintentioned” and that the teacher did not “desire to embarrass, intimidate or harm any student,” Read said. “Poor judgment by any teacher is concerning and we plan to work with the teacher on more positive and productive classroom management skills going forward,” he added. The school, in Skamania County

near the Washington-Oregon border, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor

did the teacher. A high school employee reached by phone on Friday afternoon said she was back in the

classroom. Cell phone footage purportedly captured from the classroom and posted to the Internet last week shows a student getting pelted with rubber

balls. — Reuters