PEMBROKE PINES, FLA. (WSVN) - A teacher at a Pembroke Pines school ended up in trouble after she was seen in a video that went viral interrupting a Muslim prayer session.
The clip, posted to TikTok earlier this week, showed the teacher disrupting a small group of Muslim students at Franklin Academy.
“Hold on. This is my office, and you all doing all this magic,” the teacher is heard saying.
At one point, the teacher walked through the students and moved someone’s hand away with her foot.
“I believe in Jesus, so I’m interrupting the floor. Excuse me,” the teacher said.
The video has been viewed several million times.
“This is a repulsive video,” said Wilfredo Ruiz with the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Ruiz said any student should be allowed to pray without disruption, and the teacher was out of line.
“We are witnessing a teacher that is supposed to be, as all administrators in the school, the protector of our children, being the aggressor, being the bully,” he said.
At one point, the teacher asked how the students got into what she said is her office.
“Who told them to come in here?” the teacher said in the video.
In the comments section of the video, its creator wrote, “To clear up, we asked two teachers if we can go pray, and they allowed us into the room that we were in, everything was fine until she walked in.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the school wrote, “Franklin Academy does not tolerate discriminatory behavior. While we do not discuss personnel matters, we can share with you that the teacher in question is no longer a member of the Franklin Academy staff.”
Parents said this was the right course of action.
“To be honest, I think the school did the right thing, because everyone should be entitled to practice their own religion, and I feel like that actions of the teacher were wrong,” said a parent.
It remains unclear whether the teacher resigned or was fired.
As of Friday evening, the creator of the video has not responded to 7News’ request for comment.
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