JOHN DAY — For as long as children have been going to school there has been a debate about what sort of instruction is appropriate for teachers to give and what should be left to parents. An assignment given to Grant Union Junior High English students has reignited that debate and created a firestorm on social media.

English students in Rebecca Batease’s class were given an assignment in the form of a daily prompt on their school Chromebooks on Wednesday, Jan. 18. The prompt included these questions:

“Do you think the number 69 is funny? Why do you think it is funny? Do you know where the significance of the number 69 comes from?”

The number 69 is commonly used to denote a sexual act.

One student who didn’t know what 69 meant reportedly was told to “Google it” by Batease. The student proceeded to do so on his school Chromebook, then showed the search results to the rest of the class.

After fielding complaints from parents, the Grant School District put Batease on administrative leave while it investigated the matter. In an email to families in the district on Friday, Superintendent Louis Dix said that a new teacher would be assigned to the class beginning the week of Monday, Jan. 23.

Batease was in her first year of teaching in the Grant School District.

When contacted by the Blue Mountain Eagle, Batease declined to comment.

Jessica Moore has a child in Batease’s English class and became aware of the assignment after her child texted her a screenshot of the questions. Moore then created a Facebook post with the screenshot along with an account of her correspondence with various Grant School District administrators.

By Thursday morning, Moore’s Facebook post had 100 reactions, 93 of them either angry or surprised. There were also 190 comments from community members urging the school district to take swift action on the matter.

Moore said she was “pretty shocked” when she learned of the assignment Batease gave to junior high students.

“(I was) kind of in disbelief, honestly, because there have been little things that my daughter and some of the other kids have told me about this teacher,” she said.

“I listen to them and, if it’s something, I would contact the school, but it’s always been something that was just kind of like, ‘Oh, maybe you’re reading into it too much, honey.’ All of the stuff that was a huge deal to her, I didn’t think (was) the end of the world.”

Moore stressed that she did think some of the things Batease said in her class were inappropriate coming from a teacher, but to see something like this spelled out so bluntly gave her a jolt.

“I was shocked that it was just in black and white right there,” she said. “It blew my mind that a teacher would have that much — I don’t know what you’d call it, if guts is the right word — but to actually put it out on an assignment.”

Moore said that she spoke to Vice Principal Andy Lusco and was provided an explanation of the teacher’s rationale for creating the assignment. Reportedly, Batease said she had heard students making inappropriate jokes and thought she’d teach them a lesson by putting the subject of their jokes into an assignment.

Moore was not satisfied with that explanation.

In Moore’s mind, Batease was either too foolish to realize the assignment was inappropriate or she wanted junior high kids to describe a sexual scenario for her to read. Moore said either possibility was a valid reason for Batease to be terminated.

“I told the principal (Karen Shelton) that the problem is neither her, nor I or anyone else can know which it is,” Moore said. “Of course she’s going to have something like that, but the thing is we don’t know. We just don’t know.”

Adding to the controversy, some commenters on Moore’s Facebook post drew attention to Batease’s Instagram account, which was public for everyone (including students) to see. The account was littered with scantily clad and seductive photos of a woman, purportedly Batease herself.

Batease’s Instagram and Facebook pages are currently not viewable by the public.

Moore said she has considered pulling her child from Grant School district in the past, but a strong family connection to the district has prevented her from making the move. “I want my kids to be Grant Union Prospectors. I know how awesome that school can be,” she said.

“If us parents don’t get something more than a ‘she agrees she shouldn’t have done it’ kind of thing then, yes, that would be something that we would be considering.”