John Matthews
WMAL.com
FREDERICK, MD — (WMAL) A petition drive has been launched, calling on Frederick County Schools to rehire Katie Nash, the district’s former web experience coordinator, who was dismissed last week following a Twitter storm that began when she corrected a student’s spelling in a playful online exchange.
The trouble began January 5th, when, with bad weather approaching, a student begged in a tweet for school to be closed “tammarow”, to which Nash had replied “But then how would you learn how to spell ‘tomorrow?’ :)”
Her response quickly went viral, with more than 1,000 retweets and 1,000 likes, but Nash’s casual discourse with the community was not universally well-received within the County school offices. She was ordered to stop tweeting, but without more specific direction, Nash continued to post calendar updates, as well as news items from the school system’s in-house news alert system.
Last Friday, Nash was handed a dismissal letter, and by the weekend, an online petition was launched demanding that she be given her job back. As of Tuesday morning, more than 5,200 people had shown their support online.
Nash says she’s not interested in getting her job back.
“I want to honor that support, but I also want to tell them that I respectfully decline to go back to FCPS,” she told the Frederick News-Post. “I know this is coming from a place that they want to support me. I want to show them I really appreciate the heartfelt well wishes.”
The boy who was the original “target” of Nash’s tweet says he was never offended by what Nash wrote, and neither was his father, who told the News-Post, “it was all in good fun.” [My son] caught some flak, but I was giving my son more flak than anything.”
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