Rehired teacher rejects ‘immoral behavior’ accusation

By Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter, with CNA

Music teacher Hsiao Hsia-ling (蕭曉玲) said she did not remember humiliating students, but even if she had, it would not have justified her dismissal from Taipei Municipal Zhongshan Junior High School.

Hsiao took the Taipei City Government to court in 2008, saying she had been wrongfully fired after a performance evaluation as an act of political retaliation by then-Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) administration, which she said was motivated by her opposition to the administration’s “one guideline, one curriculum” education policy.

Although the Supreme Administrative Court ruled in favor of the city in 2011, the Control Yuan issued a corrective measure against it in 2013, citing irregularities and procedural improprieties in the conduct of the city’s review board.

The Ministry of Education in January 2014 sent a letter to the Control Yuan to say that Hsiao had frequently referred to her students with “vulgar” expressions, such “tone deaf,” “lowlifes” and “jerks.”

Hsiao was back in the headlines last week, after Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on Wednesday hired her to work at another city school, with compensation for nine years of back salary.

During a radio interview on Monday, Hsiao was asked whether she had ever called her former students “tone deaf” or “lowlifes.”

She said that she could not remember, adding that the matter was unrelated to her firing.

Raising her voice, she accused the show’s host of attacking her by asking if she had called a student “a piece of trash,” as her critics had alleged following her reinstatement.

She said she might have made the comment, but that even if she had, that did not mean she had displayed “immoral behavior that failed her position as a teacher,” which was the reason the school gave for dismissing her.

Hsiao said that she had consistently received an “A” in teacher evaluations before she filed a lawsuit in November 2007 against Hau over his “one guideline, one curriculum” policy. In the three months after her filing, she received a major demerit and then was fired, she said.

“No teachers have ever been treated the way I was treated,” she said, adding that between 2002 and 2010, Taipei fired just seven teachers, all of whom had been charged with sexual harassment or assault.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Chung Hsiao-ping (鍾小平) on Monday said that the Taipei Department of Education has withheld documents authorizing Hsiao’s reinstatement

Chung, who filed a charge of dereliction of duty against Ko over rehiring Hsiao, said that if Taipei Department of Education Deputy Commissioner Tseng Tsan-chin (曾燦金) issues the documents, he would sue Tseng as well.