Teachers suspended after showing beheading video...

[TexasStooge]

Teachers suspended after showing beheading video to students

By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA-TV

Two Northwest High School teachers were suspended Monday after they showed students the videotaped beheading of American hostage Nick Berg.

Officials with the school, located in far north Fort Worth near the Texas Motor Speedway, are investigating why the teachers showed the tape to three classes. Officials said one teacher stopped the tape before the beheading of Berg occurred, but the other showed the complete video.

Students said another student downloaded the video from the Internet and brought it to school on a disk. The teachers then let students watch the execution as part of a history lesson.

"They said, 'it was inappropriate to show on the big screen, so if you want to watch it you could watch it on my personal computer,'" student Pamela Harris said.

Northwest ISD superintendent Keith Sockwell confirmed that two teachers, over a total of three class periods on Friday and Monday, allowed students to view the video.

Sockwell said his initial reaction was disbelief.

"This is something I think was poor judgment," Sockwell. "I was very disappointed that we have teachers that would allow this to be shown in the classroom."

Parents Mark and Jeanette Wood said they were grateful their daughter had left the classroom before the video was shown.

"It should not have taken place in a school room ... I don't know what the value of that education is," said Mark Wood. "Every one of them should be dismissed, no excuses, no ploys ... tell us the truth, deal with the action, be accountable and be responsible."

"(To take) gruesome, sickening, inhumane acts and put that in front of the children - that's not the way you teach them," Jeanette Wood said.

Harris and her mother defended the teachers.

"Some kids chose not to watch it, and that was fine, he didn't show everybody - the computer was (facing) the wall," Harris said. " Yeah, it was bad and it made me really angry about what goes on over there, but this is history."

"They're both good teachers," her mother said.

Counselors will be made available for students who saw the video. The teachers, who were not named, have been placed on administrative leave with pay.