A West Fargo, North Dakota, special education teacher is under investigation by her school district for insensitive social media posts about her job and her students.
Sheridan Tihista, a former Miss Montana beauty pageant winner and teacher at Liberty Middle School, is accused of calling mothers of autistic children “monsters” and students “Satan” on Twitter, according to WDAY.
Tihista, whose platform of inclusive education for students with disabilities won her the pageant title, allegedly claimed the best part of teaching children with autism is not having to change her classroom because “we loooove routines!”
#beauty #makeup Sheridan Tihista, beauty queen, in trouble over tweets – Daily Mail https://t.co/VPi51jVTfu
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An anonymous group of parents provided school officials and the media with more than 20 pages of incendiary tweets posted by the teacher.
Tihista supposedly also disclosed interactions with her pupils, often dismissively. In one tweet, she posted a text message screenshot of someone wanting “attention” for Christmas with the caption “basically all of my students.”
“Fi takes care of a kid that is borderline psyopath…. I teach kids that I think have a second life as a wolverine. #shameless,” the teacher tweeted on March 31, according to KVLY.
Another tweet said: “I yelled at my student today and accidentally called him by my cat’s name…. not even ashamed bc that’s how annoying he was.”
In a text to WDAY, Tihista admitted her tweets might have been off-base:
“My tweets may have been distasteful but don’t illustrate what kind of educator I am.”
According to the New York Daily News, the teacher’s now-deleted Twitter profile (@sheridipitous) read “just another teacher trying to hide from her students on social media. if you’re a student, go away.”
[Featured Image: YouTube]
