Connie and David Beard | Connie Beard / Facebook
Connie and David Beard | Connie Beard / Facebook
Homer Community Consolidated School District 33C is under the microscope for hiring an elementary school art teacher who acknowledges struggling with reportedly violent tendencies resulting from mental illness. Kris Martin’s self-disclosed struggles with mania and psychosis prompted fears of potential violence and have sparked a call for swift action to remove the individual from the school.
“It is discouraging to see another example of a school district using poor standards for hiring staff,” Connie Beard told the McLean County Times. “It defies logic to hire a teacher who identifies as being prone to violence, displays acts of violence and speaks of others with such vitriolic attacks. This hiring demonstrates such a lack of common sense that it should be cause for any parent to not just call for dismissal of the teacher but a total review of the hiring process for the district. Ultimate responsibility falls on the school board.”
Beard voiced strong criticism against the school district, denouncing what she perceives as a glaring lapse in hiring standards. Beard’s remarks come in the wake of the district’s decision to employ an elementary school art teacher who has reportedly exhibited behaviors that raised concerns about potential attacks.
The teacher’s 2018 and 2020 social media posts, including profanity-laden comments targeting police officers, have ignited outrage and prompted calls for action, particularly from parents with students enrolled in the district.
“@Homer33c hired this individual as an elementary school teacher. He claims to suffer from ‘mania and psychosis’ which can lead him to be ’violent and hurtful,’” Libs of TikTok said in an Aug. 17 post on X, formerly Twitter.
The account linked to Martin’s social media.
“I HAVE BI POLAR 1 DISORDER WITH MANIA AND PSYCHOSIS!” the post in Martin’s name reads. “This condition has drastically changed my life for better and worse. Because of it I suffer from irrational thought processes which make my fears and anxieties triple. Every day is a battle with my mind to survive and be the best me I can be. I have done things in conditions of psychosis and mania that have been violent and hurtful. But I am NOT my disease. I am ME! And I know ME. And I LOVE ME!”
Another photo posted by LibsofTikTok and attributed to Martin showed a graphic violent still image from a horror movie depicting blood and death.
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