MARTINSVILLE, IL - Jordan Parmenter, a southeastern Illinois high school English teacher, has been put on paid leave after students reported him stomping on a U.S. Flag in class last Friday. The incident has quickly become national news.
“We can’t figure out why he actually went to the simulations of actually doing it,” Martinsville High School senior Jonathan Smith told Tristatehomepage.com. “He talked about it being the right to do whatever he wants. That’s why it was there so he could do whatever he wants, but we have no idea why he would actually take it down and basically start all this.”
The students at Martinsville High, located 20 miles northeast of Effingham, Illinois - report that Parmenter was using a U.S. flag as a pointer in class. One of the students told Parmenter that using the flag that way was disrespectful. The teacher then became angry, dropped the flag on the floor, and deliberately stepped on it.
The teacher allegedly quarreled with students and with those in the next class period that had heard about his actions, the Journal Gazette & Time-Courier reports.
District Superintendent Jill Rogers placed Parmenter on paid leave until the end of the school year, pending investigation into the incident.
One of the moms said her son, Seth, and another student in the next class period protested by placing their heads on their desks and refusing to look up at the teacher. She said the teacher angrily touched her son's shoulders to try to get him to look up and then sent him to the school office under the threat of detention.
"This is a situation in which I am proud of our students. Our students are standing up for our nation," Gina Gibson, Seth's mother, told the JG-TC.com.
