What’s Wrong With This Middle School’s Sign
The now-infamous welcome-back-to-school sign in Dallas, Georgia. (Photo: Facebook/Newsradio 106.7).
Police responded immediately to an incident at the East Paulding Middle School in Dallas, Georgia, on Monday — the spelling police, that is.
School administrators had posted a back-to-school greeting on the building’s sign with a typo worthy of a big red “X” on one of their sixth grader’s tests: “Welcome Back Students We Are Glad You Are Hear.”
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At least one amused individual who spotted the spelling gaffe at the school circulated a photo of it — which got more than a thousand views on Imgur. Snarky comments about the sign also erupted on Facebook, where a news outlet’s post about the error elicited a number of funny remarks including, “We here you loud and clear” and “Welkum back to publik skool.”
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East Paulding Middle School principal Brett Taylor declined Yahoo Parenting’s invitation to comment on the error, but Suzanne Wooley, the Paulding County School District director of communications, tells Yahoo Parenting that the sign wasn’t up for even an hour before it was corrected. Taylor insisted on the school’s website that its educators “pride [them]selves on academic excellence.”
“It was unfortunate that the wrong word was used, as it has now been shared across the country,” says Wooley. “Obviously we weren’t happy with it, but we know it was an innocent mistake that, in a rush, could happen to anyone.”
On the plus side, the error does offer some teachable moments. “Perhaps one of the most important lessons is, there is a camera everywhere and you never know what will end up on social media,” she says. “And this shows how important it is to proofread what you’re writing.” But, she adds, the fundamental concept that students — and adults — should take away from this is that “we are all human. We all make mistakes. That is an important part of education.”
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