Florida teacher fired for wizardry

[chitoryu12]

Only in Florida...

LAND 'O LAKES, Fla. -- A substitute teacher in Pasco County has lost his job after being accused of wizardry.

Teacher Jim Piculas does a magic trick where a toothpick disappears and then reappears.

Piculas recently did the 30-second trick in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land 'O Lakes.

Piculas said he then got a call from the supervisor of teachers, saying he'd been accused of wizardry.

"I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, 'Jim, we have a huge issue, you can't take any more assignments you need to come in right away,'" he said.

Piculas said he did not know f any other accusations that would have led to the action.

The teacher said he is concerned that the incident may prevent him from getting future jobs.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

On second thought, scratch that. Even for Florida this is too good.

[Redleader34]

Wha.. That's a trick I do all the time with the CCD classes? Its magic now? I thought it was a basic illusion that takes a few weeks to learn.

[Magus]

Oh come on! Everyone knows it's not really wizardry unless he uttered some fake Latin to induce the effect. Looks like someone's fallen under a stupidus accusationus curse.

[Feil]

I call bullshit and yellow journalism. Read carefully.

Piculas said he then got a call from the supervisor of teachers, saying he'd been accused of wizardry.

Sounds like the supervisor of teachers said he'd been "accused of wizardry", right? But wait. Is that really what the supervisor of teachers said?

"I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, 'Jim, we have a huge issue, you can't take any more assignments you need to come in right away,'" he said.

No, actually the supervisor said "Jim, we have a huge issue, bla bla bla." The person who was saying he was accused of wizardry in the first paragraph was Piculas.

Piculas said he did not know f [sic] any other accusations that would have led to the action.

Wait, what? Piculas himself says, indirectly, that he doesn't know why he was terminated.

Some local journalist from Florida is trying to sell a story by taking a causation/correlation fallacy and what was probably a flustered attempt at humor and stating it with such authority that it comes out looking true.

[Patrick Degan]

He was found out. Never, never perform magick before Muggles.

[The Vortex Empire]

I knew Florida was bad, but holy shit.

[Kanastrous]

If only he'd told the kids that it was the power of Christ making the toothpick disappear and reappear, there wouldn't have been a problem.

[Venator]

I have to agree with Feil; if the page from the office is quoted verbatim then there's nothing to but the teacher's suspicion that he was fired for wizardry.

[Dominus Atheos]

Here's another version of the story.

LAND O' LAKES - The telephone call that spelled the end of Jim Piculas' career as a substitute teacher in Pasco County came on a January day about a week after he performed the disappearing-toothpick trick for a group of rapt middle school students.

Pat Sinclair, who oversees substitute teachers in the Pasco County School District, was on the phone. She told Piculas there had been a complaint about his performance at Rushe Middle School in Land O' Lakes.

He asked what she meant.

"She said, 'You've been accused of wizardry,'

" Piculas said.

He said the statement seemed bizarre to him, like something out of Harry Potter.

Piculas said he replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

He said he also told Sinclair, "It's not black magic. It's a toothpick."

The school district puts a somewhat different spin on the disappearing-toothpick incident.

Assistant Superintendent Renalia DuBose said the word "wizardry" never came up on the school district's end.

"That was his rendition of what happened," she said.

DuBose also said "there was a lot more involved" than a simple magic-trick demonstration.

She said the principal interviewed students after the regular teacher complained about Piculas' performance in the classroom. The principal then requested that Piculas not return to the school and said he "absolutely should not be subbing," DuBose said.

"The toothpick demonstration was minor compared to the other problems," she said.

In a letter the district sent to Piculas, performing a magic trick at Rushe Middle is just one of the reasons the district gives for dumping him from the substitute-teacher list. The others are that Piculas did not follow the lesson plans, he allowed students on computers even though another teacher said not to and he told the fifth-period student peer that she was in charge.

Piculas said those other reasons are just window dressing. He said he finished the lesson plan, another teacher knew the students were on the computers and he never put the student peer in charge.

Piculas said he thinks his troubles all come down to the disappearing-toothpick trick and a student who may have interpreted the trick as wizardry.

The trick requires a toothpick and transparent tape. A sleight-of-hand maneuver causes the toothpick to disappear then reappear. At least, so it seems. In reality, the toothpick hides behind the performer's thumb, held in place by the tape.

"The whole thing lasted 45 seconds," Piculas said.

He said the students liked the trick. He showed them how to do it so they could perform it at home.

One student in the Rushe Middle class apparently took the trick the wrong way, Piculas said. He said he was told the student became so traumatized that the student's father complained.

Sinclair wrote Piculas a letter, dated Jan. 28, to say the district would "no longer be using your services." The letter mentioned magic tricks at the end of the list of other classroom offenses he is accused of committing.

The word "wizardry" does not appear in the letter.

"I think she was trying to downplay it because it sounded so goofy," Piculas said.

Piculas had worked as a substitute teacher for eight or nine months, spending time at 15 schools. He said he also was working toward teacher certification with the dream of being hired full time.

That appears unlikely now. Piculas said he applied for a job as a GED instructor but wasn't allowed to interview.

"My whole career is in limbo," he said.

Tampa Bay Online

[Scottish Ninja]

From that article, it looks like the teacher was just being a useless sub who didn't get anything done (though in that case the students would hardly complain), and the school didn't want to bother with him sticking around. The whole thing about "wizardry" is probably something he just trumped up to get it in the papers and maybe keep from getting fired.

In a letter the district sent to Piculas, performing a magic trick at Rushe Middle is just one of the reasons the district gives for dumping him from the substitute-teacher list. The others are that Piculas did not follow the lesson plans, he allowed students on computers even though another teacher said not to and he told the fifth-period student peer that she was in charge.

Piculas said those other reasons are just window dressing. He said he finished the lesson plan, another teacher knew the students were on the computers and he never put the student peer in charge.

Here's the main part of the article that I'm looking at - I'd be surprised if the deal with the magic trick was over "magic" rather than wasting class time. The rest of the accusations now seems to come down to he-said, she-said arguing, though I'm a little more inclined to take the school's side here.

[Zixinus]

So this is just a useless prick pulling a fast one out of his ass so he won't get fired. Next.

[Flagg]

I'm perfectly willing to believe his story. I knew a ton of idiots down there who believed in witchcraft and wouldn't even watch David Copperfield shows on TV because it was "black magic".