The former Como Park Senior High teacher whose blog and social media posts had activists threatening to “shut down” the school says the episode got him “blacklisted” from teaching jobs.
In a Pioneer Press guest column Thursday, Theo Olson wrote he hasn’t been back in a classroom since he was placed on administrative leave in March 2016.
RELATED: Theo Olson: Did I really morph into a racist? Of course not
Black Lives Matter St. Paul called Olson racist for Facebook posts about school discipline. Later, dozens of entries from his personal blog were uncovered with unflattering depictions of a fictional urban high school.
Olson wrote that his words were misconstrued.
“For 18 years, I built equity by advocating for public school kids, keeping them in class and out of the school-to-prison pipeline — I was accused of not believing in it, when in fact, I was just tired of the finger pointing about it. It doesn’t feel so great to be fighting bias and then be accused of being biased,” he wrote.