In an interview with The Daily Wire on Friday, Julianne Benzel, a high school AP American History teacher in Sacramento, California, said she was "stunned" when — without prior warning or any explanation — she received notification from the school on the morning of the National School Walkout gun control demonstration that she had been placed on paid administrative leave.
"At around 8:30 in the morning on Wednesday, I was notified by the school that I had been placed on paid administrative leave," said Benzel, a widely popular teacher who has taught at Rocklin High School for two decades. "I received the call about a half-hour before school started and was emailed a generic leave form with no explanation for why they were suspending me. I was stunned."
Asked if she had any suspicions that morning about what might have triggered the administration’s actions, Benzel said that she suspected it had to do with the politically-charged gun control demonstration because of the timing.
Though she assumed the school would soon contact her for clarification on the grounds for the mysterious suspension, the first time she would learn of the school’s rationale was when reporters knocked on her door Wednesday afternoon, right around the time school let out. Benzel learned to her surprise that the school had told the press why they’d suspended her before they'd informed her.
"To be honest, I was hurt and disappointed," Benzel said about the school’s handling of the situation.
Benzel learned from the reporters that "complaints" from a few students and parents about her merely asking them to consider the ramifications of schools officially endorsing a political demonstration had been determined by the school to be grounds for placing her on administrative leave.