ROARING SPRING — Local community members flooded the Spring Cove School Board’s meeting Monday, voicing their opinions about a Central High School faculty member’s comments on social media regarding the recent assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk.

In a Facebook comment, music teacher Janelle Parker allegedly said she is not “shedding a tear” after Kirk’s assassination on Wednesday, adding that she has “never felt this negative about America and our jackass leader.”

“Kirk was a powerful, outspoken conservative who held the opposite belief I have about humans and how they should be treated,” she wrote. “You reap what you sow.”

Some community members spoke against Parker’s comments, while others stated that she had a right to free speech.

Before the public comment period, solicitor Jennifer Dambeck said that there are “multiple steps” that must be taken in Pennsylvania before termination, including an investigation and a hearing.

Since Parker is a tenured employee, Dambeck said that “no tenured teacher is able to be fired immediately until the due processing has been satisfied.”

Regardless of Dambeck’s explanation, many speakers called for Parker’s dismissal, including Michael Walter from East Freedom.

Walter believed Parker wrote that comment as an “uneducated” person because she called U.S. President Donald Trump a “jackass,” leading him “to question her qualification and maturity.”

Labeling Kirk as a “model Christian,” he said the activist believed in the “golden rule,” and Parker was against that lesson due to her comment.

“It’s a moral issue,” he said. “It’s not a Republican or Democrat issue, it’s a moral issue.”

Parker’s comment was “very negative and disrespectful to a dead person,” according to 2023 graduate Owen Ritchey, who previously had Parker for a teacher.

“Positivity” is shown throughout her Facebook page, Ritchey said, but then asked “where is the positivity” following her recent comment about Kirk’s assassination.

Following the recent terminations of MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd, Ritchey said Parker’s employment status “comes down to you guys” and that “there is only one right decision.”

Lisa Bollman wore a “FREEDOM” T-shirt while saying many people have mocked Kirk by using ignorance and gloating and that Parker expressed a “hateful” comment on social media.

Bollman said Parker “used words to display an act that if someone doesn’t agree with your views or opinions, it’s okay to use harm, injury or even kill someone.”

Adorning a matching shirt to Bollman, school board member-elect Alyssa McGregor said that since Parker did not shed a tear for Kirk’s assassination, she will shed one when she is “disciplined for your actions.”

“How would each of you feel if Charlie Kirk was your child, your brother, your son,” she asked the audience.

The morning after Parker’s Facebook comment, McGregor started a change.org petition calling on Spring Cove board members to terminate Parker. Currently, the petition has more than 1,500 signatures.

People not only had issues concerning Parker’s employment, but the school board’s as well.

Matthew McGregor, a practicing attorney in Blair and surrounding counties, said that since Parker was not “immediately placed on administrative leave,” an investigation should be placed upon the district’s administration.

There was a large-scale protest at Central High School, he said, and a stay-in-place order was issued, but parents were not notified of this order. Students, however, communicated with their parents via cellphones that the order was placed.

“It is my estimation that this is a huge failure of leadership to allow the teacher to return to the classroom, even if it was for a day or two,” Matthew McGregor said.

His response was met with cheering from the crowd.

Some defend teacher

On the other side of the spectrum, individuals took to the microphone to defend Parker’s freedom of speech, such as teacher Kate Muthler from Roaring Spring.

Standing for “free speech,” she noted that a teacher’s freedom of speech is held to a “higher standard” compared to the president of the United States.

“It should not be more than the president of the United States who has threatened to put a rifle squad in front of a political advocate,” she said.

She said “teachers — just like everybody else — have their opinion,” even if they are met with disagreement.

Before reading a student’s comment aloud, an indistinguishable voice from the crowd asked, “who cares,” which Muthler laughed off.

In the student’s statement, they thanked Parker for showing students how to “experience music rather than just listen to it. You have inspired us and made our lives full of enjoyment every time we stepped onto those risers.”

Following Muthler, Martinsburg resident Mike McMullen said last week was “ugly” for his nation and his community, watching “viciousness spewed by so many of us.”

“The vicious attacks that have been shared in the past week proved to me that this community, this school district, all of you, are no better than anyone else,” McMullen said.

He asked how a “simple reply” can be used as “fuel to ruin a person’s life,” while asking for people to “look at the posts by some of the very people in this room,” mentioning that some individuals have attacked Parker and her family.

“Some of your responses have been far more inflammatory to anything I have posted about the death of Charlie Kirk,” he said.

The last speaker was recent graduate Natalie Lape, who said she thought it was “really ironic” that people support the First Amendment, but when someone disagrees, it’s “not OK to spew what they want.”

While Parker’s student, Lape said Parker showed “nothing but love and kindness toward her students.”

Mentioning her experiences with a past teacher who used slurs in class, another who compared Obama to Hitler, and one that singled out Lape’s grandfather’s death “the moment he got the chance to,” she said Parker offered Lape condolences in her own way while experiencing tough times in school.

“She was one of the few teachers who gave a damn about your kids,” she said, “at least in my experience, believe it or not.”

There is some precedent for the handling of this situation, from the Spring Cove district itself.

According to a Seattle Times article dated in 2012, Spring Cove administrators claimed teacher Phillip Waite was “exercising his First Amendment rights” after comparing then-President Barack Obama to Hitler, calling him a Nazi during a speech.

District officials said “no disciplinary action” will be taken against Waite following the comments he made at a Blair County Tea Party rally, the Seattle Times article stated.

Mirror Staff Writer Colette Costlow is at 814-946-7414.