‘Bully’ Teacher Gave 1st Grader Red Nose, Negative Awards: Family

LAFAYETTE, LA — Elementary schools’ end-of-the-year school awards typically recognize students for their positive attitudes, academic improvements and overall awesomeness, but in Lafayette, Louisiana, a teacher faces disciplinary action for handing out “most talkative” and “class clown” awards to a first grader, then giving him a red nose to wear in front of the class.

The family of Evangeline Elementary School first-grader Hayden Albert said the teacher, Jessica Bordlee, should publicly apologize. School officials said Bordlee will “absolutely” face “some level of discipline” for her conduct, which the boy’s grandmother said was like that of a bully.

As they’re typically thought of, class clowns are kids who steal the teacher’s spotlight and derail classroom decorum with perfectly timed jokes that leave everyone laughing — and not listening to the teacher.

But Hayden doesn’t fit the class clown stereotype, his grandmother, Shaneka Hayes, told television station KLFY. He has big imagination, she said, “but as far as being funny, making people laugh, jokey-jokey — she said that’s why she gave him the award — no, no he’s not like that.”

“A teacher like this — you're a bully," Hayes said.

Hayes said in an earlier interview with KLFY that Hayden said afterword that the awards made him feel conspicuous.

“Everything was just so quiet and people had these strange looks on their faces,” Hayes said the boy told her. “People kept looking at me to see my reaction. I was so uncomfortable.”

The end-of-the-year certificates are keepsakes families often want to frame and display, but “who wants to frame something like that?” Hayes asked.

Bordlee faced fierce criticism online for singling out Hayden. His aunt said in a Facebook post the teacher’s mistake was in what she named the awards — instead of “class clown” and “most talkative,” she could have recognized him as “funniest” or “future motivational speaker,” the aunt wrote, according to the KLFY report.

Hayden’s great aunt, LaTosha Alexis, told The Daily Advertiser that the teacher missed an opportunity to “celebrate children.”

“This had nothing to do with honoring the child,” Alexis said. “It’s not appropriate for the first grade.”

Joe Craig, the chief administrative officer for the Lafayette Parish School System, told the television station that “in a different time, clown probably had a different connotation.”

“The meaning of words evolve over time and I just don't think the connotation with the word clown is appropriate to these days,” Craig said. “We want to celebrate a child's success and we want them to grow up and be emotionally stable and mature, and the way to do that is with positive reinforcement.”

Bordlee has apologized to Hayden’s family. The Daily Advertiser, which obtained a recording of the message, said Bordlee apologized if the class clown award offended the family, but that wasn’t her intention. She also said that Hayden asked for the red nose.

Photo via Shutterstock / Herz-Perspektive