The Dubuque Community School District says it will appeal a district court decision to reverse the termination of the contract of a Hempstead High School teacher Roger Poling who was fired in 2023 after a video of him using a racial slur spread on social media.
This week in a special meeting, the school board instructed legal counsel to file the appeal of the court ruling last month which reinstated Poling’s contract.
The court said the school board’s decision to terminate Poling’s contract ignored the context surrounding the moment Poling said the slur. The ruling said Poling had repeated the word back to the student in an attempt to explain the student’s misconduct.
