WATCH: Eighteen-year-old student Ty Stemmler tweeted a fake message saying teachers in Waterloo were striking May 4th and was suspended for three days. Lama Nicolas has the details.
Ty Stemmler, 18, was suspended for three days for tweeting a fake message saying teachers in the Waterloo region are striking May 4.
”They basically told me that what I did was unacceptable,” he said. “And made some teachers cry and panic and freak out.”
Stemmler is a student at Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School. He doctored the school board’s website on his computer and shared the screen grab on his Twitter feed, it went viral with roughly 70 re-tweets.
“Everybody started re-tweeting it and apparently people started celebrating in classes and we thought it was pretty funny”, says Stemmler.
Stemmler was called to the school’s office and sent home for three days. Lynsey Meilke, a spokesperson for the Waterloo Region District School Board, wouldn’t discuss details of the case but sent this statement.
In general, we have procedures that are used if there are questions about student behaviour, which include consequences that escalate based on the frequency of behaviour and/or the seriousness of the behaviour. A suspension is a consequence for behaviour that would be viewed as serious. As well, the board has both policies and procedures regarding the responsible use of technology, which guide decisions around the appropriate consequences if there are infractions.
His mother, Stephanie Stemmler feels her son was unfairly punished and is helping him appeal his suspension.
“I feel that a few teachers who spoke the loudest were able to get the reaction they wanted from the administration,” she said.
“If Ty is posting something on his Twitter account, the reaction of someone else reading his own personal thoughts, he shouldn’t be blamed for someone else’s reaction to that.”
The Waterloo student admits what he did was wrong and has apologized for it but he also believes his message was obviously fake and full of spelling errors. He’s never been suspended before and has good grades.
“It’s a privacy issue. Why are teachers looking at my Twitter for their news for one, and secondly they tell you at the beginning of every school year, always check your sources, always see where everything comes from, everything you see on the internet is not true,” he said.
High school teachers in Waterloo could hit the picket lines soon, but a strike deadline has not been set.
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