High school teacher suspended after Satan costume causes controversy
Niamh Shackleton
Featured Image Credit: YouTube / 12 News
A teacher who dressed up as Satan for Spirit Week ended up being suspended.
The unnamed educator who teaches at a school in Mesa, Arizona, rocked up in a satanic costume, which left some students uncomfortable.
As to what the costume entailed, apparently they had been sporting devil horns and a pitch fork - and he allegedly waved the pitchfork over students' heads while shouting 'Hail Satan!'.
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While some students were unfazed by his outfit, others were less impressed.
Sophomore Nathaniel Hamlet alleges the teacher poked him with the pitchfork and became disgruntled when they didn't stop when he asked.
"I said, ‘Don’t do that to me,’ and I pushed [the pitchfork] away, maybe three or four times, and he still said it and still did it," Hamlet told KPNX.
Defending his decision to wear the ensemble for the school's Spirit Week, the unidentified teacher said: "Participating in spirit weeks like this is a way for me to engage with my students and bring fun to my classroom.
"It’s truly not any more complicated than that.”
Mesa Public Schools District has since issued a statement in light of the controversy.
“Mesa Public Schools administration was notified of the alleged incident at Mesa High School late Wednesday afternoon after school hours," it said.
“Our Human Resources department began the investigation Thursday morning and placed the teacher on paid administrative leave pending the result of the investigation.
“The investigation remains ongoing.”
This isn't the only drama to have occurred at an Arizona school of late; in November 2022 middle school teacher Samantha Peer was forced to resign from her job after students discovered she had an OnlyFans page.
She had been an educator for five years.
Peers later claimed that she set up the account to make extra money as her teacher's salary wasn't enough to pay the bills.
"My children are the most important thing to me, and I’m already spending countless hours outside of my contract time on extra school activities, and I don’t think it’s fair that I have to sacrifice my own children’s time because our professional salary did not pay enough," she explained in a video statement shared at the time.
Peer's husband is also a teacher.
In regards to how she tried to stop students seeing the content, Peer claimed that she blocked the whole of Arizona from being able to view her page and opted for an anonymous name.