Broncos jersey causes furor in Beaver Falls class
Student says teacher harassed and punished him for wearing orange
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
By Tim Grant, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette
Joshua Vannoy, 17, wears his Denver Broncos jersey outside of his home in Big Beaver. Joshua wore the jersey to school on Friday and said he was harassed by his teacher, John Kelly, in an Ethics Relations class at Big Beaver Falls Area Senior High School. Joshua says he's not a big Broncos fan, just a huge fan of John Elway, whose jersey he is wearing.
When Joshua Vannoy decided to wear a Denver Broncos jersey Friday, he knew there would be some joking from diehard Steelers fans at Big Beaver Falls Area Senior High School.
But he never expected to feel humiliated by his teacher during a mid-term examination and become so shaken up that he could not finish his test.
"I feel awful, like I was dehumanized," said Joshua, 17, a junior and self-described honor student.
He's made a complaint to the principal against John Kelly, who teaches an honors class on ethnic relations, saying the teacher made him sit on the floor to take his test and instructed other classmates to pelt him with balled up sheets of notebook paper.
Donna Nugent, superintendent of Big Beaver Falls Area School District, said she is investigating.
"We're not making light of this at all," Dr. Nugent said.
Mr. Kelly had little to say on the subject yesterday.
"We won the game [Sunday] night, didn't we?" he said. "That's all I was worried about."
School Principal Thomas Karczewski said what happened was "intended as a joke" and that the matter was "getting out of hand."
Joshua said his feelings were hurt, his nerves shattered and Mr. Kelly's reaction to his John Elway No. 7 jersey was anything but humorous.
"He had a dead serious face," said Joshua. "He never laughed at all."
He said when he went to sit down at his regular desk on Friday, Mr. Kelly ordered him to "take those books off my desk. I own that desk." He placed his textbooks on the floor and then sat down at the desk.
Joshua said his teacher told him to "get out of my desk. You're sitting in my desk."
He said Mr. Kelly began sliding the desks into a circle. Then he told Joshua to sit on the floor in the center of the circle.
While Mr. Kelly passed out the tests, he dropped Joshua's test papers, scattering them on the floor so that he had to crawl around and pick them up, Joshua said.
"As I started to write my name on the papers and number them, I noticed he went to the cupboard and grabbed a handful of notebook paper and handed it to all the kids and said, 'This is part two of your test. You'll get points for this. Take the paper and ball it up with two hands and throw it at the Denver fan,' " Joshua said.
Joshua said there were "papers flying everywhere towards me. At one point, a girl refused to do it and he [Mr. Kelly] took the paper off her desk and threw it into the back of my head."
Joshua said he was so furious his hands were shaking and he could hardly concentrate. He said he was lying flat on the carpet trying to answer essay questions about the Israeli Six-Day War and the Cold War while his face burned with shame.
He said he didn't talk back and when the dismissal bell rang, he handed the half-finished test to Mr. Kelly, who "snatched it right out of my hands."
Joshua said he reported the incident to the school principal immediately after a lunch period. He told his parents what happened when he got home.
Mr. Kelly "has never told me not to wear a Denver Broncos jersey in his class," Joshua said. "I probably wouldn't have if I knew it was going to cause this kind of big deal. I just thought it was a shirt."
Facebook
Twitter