Texas substitute teacher fired after student puppet show depicts mass shooting

A Texas substitute teacher was fired after reportedly asking students to perform a puppet show depicting a mass shooting.

In a statement published to its website, the Hays Consolidated Independent School District said the teacher was suspended and removed from campus April 19 after students at Johnson High School expressed concerns about the in-class assignment.

Details of the assignment remain hazy, however.

Students said the theater arts teacher assigned a puppet show in which at least one puppet was murdered, the district said. One group of students told administrators their puppet show involved a mass shooting, but it is not clear if that was the specific assignment or a scene created to meet the parameters of the assignment.

“Either way, assigning or allowing this type of performance, if proved to have occurred, would be disturbing and unacceptable conduct for an educator in Hays CISD,” the district said. “The school and the district apologize to the students and their parents for any distress this has caused and pledges to ensure that it does not happen again.”

Even after district officials met with the teacher Monday, they said they are still unable to nail down details of the assignment. Hays CISD said it does not know whether the assignment called for the murder of a puppet or a death scene from a Shakespearian play.

The district said the unnamed teacher, hired in January, did not have nefarious intentions but will no longer be invited to work in the district.

Johnson High School is in Buda, about 20 miles south of Austin.