Mtn. View H.S. Teacher Allegedly Placed On Leave After Making Trump, Hitler Comparisons Returns To Work

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA – A Mountain View High School teacher returned to work Monday after he was placed on paid administrative leave Thursday afternoon for alleged comparisons between president elect-Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler as reported in a campus newspaper, but denied by the school district.

The social studies teacher was placed on paid administrative leave Thursday for about the last 90 minutes of the school day for allegedly inappropriate behavior reported by students and a parent, Mountain View Los
Altos High School District Superintendent Jeff Harding said.

The teacher was identified in the school's independent student newspaper The Oracle as Frank Navarro, who said in an article that he was placed on leave for allegedly making comparisons between Trump and Hitler.

Navarro said that he never told his students Trump and Hitler were the same, according to the article.

Harding disputed the newspaper's report that the teacher was temporarily taken off the job for a historical comparison between Trump and Hitler.

"As some of you know, the MVHS Oracle published a story regarding a teacher who was placed on paid leave pending the investigation of inappropriate behavior," Harding said in an online statement to MVLA parents. "I am not at liberty to share specific personnel matters but I can state that – despite what the various media headlines say – the teacher's paid leave was not for teaching a lesson comparing Trump to Hitler."

District staff who investigated the alleged inappropriate behavior didn't find enough evidence against the teacher and determined his classroom was a "logically safe environment," Harding said.

The district informed the teacher on Saturday that he was allowed to return on Monday, according to Harding.

"The teacher was absent from his classroom for only a portion of one afternoon, and with full pay, while the situation was investigated," Harding wrote in his letter to parents. "He was reinstated as soon as we were confident that the environment was safe for students and is back in class this morning."

Teachers have been encouraged to have classroom discussions about the presidential election results that have led to mixed reactions from students, Harding said.

"Emotions are running high as a result of the election and teachers are doing their best to help students process the results," Harding said.

The story led to a Change.org petition addressed to the school's Principal David Grissom that sought the high school's administrators to end Navarro's leave and apologize for trying to intimidate the teacher. The page
has gathered 37,022 supporters as of this morning.

"To silence Trump's critics is to reward indifference, ignorance, and intolerance," the petition reads. "We demand that the MVHS administration revoke Mr. Navarro's leave and publicly apologize for attempting to intimidate a respected educator. We will not stand for censorship and respectability politics."

Navarro didn't immediately return requests for comment Monday.

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--Bay City News contributed to this post/Shutterstock image