After a employee review board cleared him of wrongdoing, a Florida middle school teacher who showed his class a homemade video celebrating Confederate History Month has filed a complaint with the school saying the investigation into his action have caused tension in the workplace.
Jonathan Papanikolaou, an English arts teacher at Manatee Middle School in Collier County, showed his self-produced and -narrated video which begins, “Good morning, hurricanes. This is Mr. Papanikolaou. If you didn’t know, April is an officially celebrated month here in the State of Florida named Confederate History Month. Every year our state celebrates and memorializes that valiant, brave fight and the countless sacrifices by our men and women during that known as the Civil War, but may be more correctly titled the War To Prevent Southern Independence.”
After the review board dismissed the complaints against him, Papanikolaou filed a complaint with the inquest “has caused [him] grief and awkwardness in classroom and school exchanges” noting “This situation has created emotional turmoil for myself.”