DETROIT — A teacher fired from a Michigan middle school after encouraging students to raise money for the family of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin said Tuesday she is confused by the dismissal and wants the school’s administration to explain.
Brooke Harris was dismissed in March from Pontiac Academy for Excellence. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., a national civil rights group, Harris’ eighth-grade journalism students asked her about the death of Martin, 17. Harris gave the students an editorial-writing assignment on the shooting. But the students wanted to raise money for Martin’s family and asked whether they could each pay $1 to wear hoodies instead of school uniforms for a day, the group said.
Harris said Superintendent Jacqueline Cassell told her the project could not go forward. Harris said she was explaining this decision to the students when she was called to meet with Cassell and suspended for encouraging the students. She was then fired after she showed up at the school to drop off prizes for students when she had been told to stay away, the SPLC said.
