Mesa Public Schools said it is looking into the incident.
On Tuesday, the teacher told 12News they dressed up that way for Halloween spirit week. The teacher explained that the theme was “dynamic duos” and that a teacher next door dressed as an angel.
“Participating in spirit weeks is a way for me to connect with my students and make class fun,” the teacher said. “It’s honestly nothing more than that.”
However, Hamlet said he felt insulted by the costume due to his religious beliefs.
“I said, ‘Don’t do that to me,’ and I pushed [the pitchfork] away maybe three or four times, but he kept doing it,” Hamlet said.
Nathaniel then told his father, Chris Hamlet, a former Mesa school board candidate, about what happened. Chris said he reported it to the school’s principal.
“I was really upset because I’m a Christian too,” Chris Hamlet said. “The main issue for me is, the teacher kept doing it even when my son asked him to stop.”
The next day, Nathaniel said the teacher was not in class and hasn’t returned since. Mesa Public Schools said the teacher is now on paid administrative leave.
A spokesperson for Mesa Public Schools gave 12News a statement on the incident:
“Mesa Public Schools administration was notified of the alleged incident late Wednesday afternoon. Our Human Resources department started investigating Thursday morning and put the teacher on paid leave. The investigation is still ongoing.”
Some parents picking up their kids from school on Monday told 12News that while they don’t agree with what the teacher did, they feel that firing him might be too extreme.
This kind 8-year-old paid off his friend’s school lunch debt after he was denied food
Cayden Taipalus, eight years old, is here to restore your confidence in humanity, so do not lose hope if you feel that it has been lost.
This young man decided to take matters into his own hands after noticing that one of his buddies was not receiving a warm breakfast at school.
Specifically, Cayden witnessed his friend receiving a sandwich rather than a hot dinner at Challenger Elementary in Howell, Michigan, one day because there weren’t enough money in his lunch account. His heart was broken, and he felt compelled to change things.
After getting home, Cayden immediately told his mother what he had seen and that it had made him feel a little depressed. His mother, Amber Melke-Peters, concurred that action was necessary to stop incidents like that from happening in the future, so together they devised the concept of creating a fundraising website named “Pay It Forward: No Kid Goes Hungry.”
Cayden asked for donations to cover his friends’ lunch debts from neighbors, relatives, and friends. His endeavor, nevertheless, went beyond financial gain because many were inspired by his narrative as it spread.
In an effort to generate money on his own, he even launched a recycling drive. He then addressed the school’s lunch staff and asked that the money be transferred to the accounts of students who were having financial issues.
More than $41,000 has been raised since Cayden launched his effort, allowing him to feed many underprivileged pupils.
Cayden’s ultimate goal is to ensure that no child misses a school day without a hot meal.
“I am so very proud of my son,” his mother declared in an interview with ABC News. His understanding of this notion at the age of eight is quite remarkable, in my opinion. His heart is made of gold.
What started as a stirring feeling in Cayden’s gut turned into an initiative that might guarantee that many kids have hot lunches.
Many people appreciated him and were motivated to support his initiative.
We think this is a fantastic initiative you choose to work on, and we contributed to it. I’m hoping that your idea has received a nomination for the Make a Difference initiative. Someone wrote, “Cayden, you have really made a difference. You have done an amazing job of helping a lot of kids.” You wouldn’t imagine that children would go hungry in a land of plenty, but in actuality, for a lot of youngsters, the food they consume at school can be their only meal of the day. It breaks my heart. As they say, it takes a village to raise a child, and by doing this, we can contribute to the upbringing of a few children while preserving their dignity.
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