Bucks teacher, on TV, defends blogging about her "rude," "lazy" students

The Bucks County high school teacher who blogged about how her students were "rude" and "lazy" appeared on national television Wednesday morning and stood by her controversial postings.

Natalie Munroe, 30, who was suspended with pay last week from her teaching job at Central Bucks High School East, appeared on Good Morning America with her attorney, Steven Rovner, who said Munroe "didn't do anything wrong."

If she is fired, she will defend herself on constitutional free-speech grounds, Rovner said.

Munroe said she wanted to continue being a teacher and return to her job at Central Bucks East, though she acknowledged that "it might be awkward."

In a blog update Saturday, she explained how events had unfolded since Feb. 9, when she was suspended and escorted from the high school.

Munroe said that she had started the blog in 2009 to share her life with a handful of followers, and that out of 84 posts, only 24 had anything do with her job. The blog, however, did have her photo and identified her as "Natalie M."

She never mentioned students by name, but her posts could sometimes be seen as all-encompassing.

"My students are out of control," she wrote Oct. 27, 2009. "They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying."

In some instances, she used profanity in describing students.

School officials learned about the blog last week when parents and students called to complain.

Munroe may be in danger of losing her job, but she has garnered a supportive following online. A fast-growing Facebook page for Munroe had more than 2,300 links early Wednesday evening.

"Uh . . . let me get this straight," one supporter wrote. "She basically states the truth about the next generation of spoiled non-contributing morons and she's being disciplined for it?"

Spencer Thomas, a former student, wrote that he had Munroe as a teacher during his junior year: "I never had any problems with her, I got an A in the class, and I actually thoroughly enjoyed her class."