A social media coordinator for a Maryland public school system says she was fired Friday after sending a relatively harmless tweet correcting a student’s spelling.
Katie Nash was managing the Twitter feed for the Frederick County Public Schools. On Jan. 5, one student tweeted to the school’s account, @FCPSMaryland, asking to close schools “tammarow.”
Nash responded through @FCPSMaryland, “But then how would you learn how to spell ‘tomorrow?’ :)”
The tweet garnered more than 1,000 retweets and likes and was the focal point of the hashtag #KatiefromFCPS, according to the Frederick News-Post. However, it was soon after she received school-wide attention when she became in trouble with school officials.
Nash and the student exchanged other tweets and the student insisted that he didn’t mind the light-hearted spelling correction. She had other interactions with students on the school’s Twitter feed before.
Nash told the paper that she was initially told not to tweet anymore, but still had access to the Twitter account. She added that she continued to tweet out school updates, but at the end of the school day Friday she was told she had been fired.
“As a new employee, I think I sort of would have expected that there would have been some counseling or some suggestions on how to improve,” she told the News-Post.
District spokesman Michael Doerrer told the paper that Nash was no longer an employee, but failed give details on her dismissal.
The tweets have since been deleted.
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