Update 1: Welcome, AR15.COM readers! (some excellent, although often quite blunt, comments).
Update 2: Welcome, Gateway Pundit (Jim Hoft) readers! (100s of comments on blog here, and on Facebook here).
Update 3: Welcome, Free Republic readers! (some very informative comments).
Update 4: A statement claiming to be made by a PR person employed by the school district has appeared as a comment at Gateway Pundit, here (archived here). It is substantively odd, as it simultaneously asserts that: (1) there was no inappropriate conduct by the teacher; but (2) both the teacher and the principal nonetheless promptly apologized to the mother for the teacher’s conduct. It is also procedurally odd because, as explained here, there is no trace of any official statement on the school district’s website or Facebook page, so that this blogger has requested that, if genuine, the statement be posted in some such place. This blogger has elaborated a bit on why the statement makes no sense, here. [Jan. 8 update: even though the school district apparently has not posted the statement on its website or Facebook page, a journalist has apparently verified the authenticity of the statement, or one similar to it; see here.]
Update 5: Injecting some much-needed levity into this unfortunate story, one Gateway Pundit commentator (“AClearThought“), rebutting the principal’s statement that “we don’t have dead animals in school,” notes (here) that just yesterday an actual part of a dead animal (not merely a photograph on a sweatshirt) was shown to children in Hinkley Elementary School!:
Update 6: Welcome, College Fix readers!
Update 7 (Jan. 8): Mike Moore (@ScribeMoore), the journalist with Outdoor News who originally broke this story, posted this update today: “School action with hunter creates controversy.” His report rebuts the “blame the mother” stance which the school district took in its statement (here): that the mother “received an apology the very next day from the teacher and the principal,” but hid that supposed fact from Mr. Moore. To the contrary, Mr. Moore reports: “The girl’s mother said she was never issued an apology from the school district” (emphasis added). So, crediting the mother’s account (which is appropriate, because the school district’s story that the teacher did nothing wrong but, nonetheless, immediately apologized, makes no sense, and because the school district has not produced a copy of the apology it says was issued to the mother), it appears that, in addition to bullying and harassing a 9-year-old-girl, the school district is calling her mother a liar.
Update 8 (Jan.8): The top of the school district’s website (archived here and here) now contains a very brief statement which, perhaps tellingly, does not assert that school officials ever apologized to the girl and her mother. Rather, the only point on which the parties appear to be in agreement is that they have resolved the situation between themselves. Of course, that does not necessarily end the controversy between the general public and school district employees over the employees’ actions.
Update 9 (Jan. 8): Welcome, Claire Wolfe readers!
Update 10 (Jan. 9): Welcome, Weasel Zippers readers!
Update 11 (Jan. 9): In a bizarre development, it turns out that on Jan. 5, two days before this blog post was published, the Highland school district issued an official press release regarding the incident involving Domonique Yatsko, but neglected to e-mail this blogger (or even leave a comment on this blog) so he could alert readers to it. You can read the press release here (archived version here). The Jan. 5 press release conflicts with several later statements made on behalf of the school district, so it is currently impossible to ascertain the district’s precise position regarding whether any of its employees did anything inappropriate, and whether any sort of apology was made to the girl and her parents (the mother indicates no apology was made). Look for a separate post later this week addressing the school district’s reaction to this controversy.
This blogger found a link to the press release this afternoon, in the midst of hundreds of comments left on the Gateway Pundit blog post — a link to this post on the Facebook page of Outdoor Ohio, the media outlet that originally broke the story. The company’s president, KC Allen, has an important, nicely balanced statement of the pros and cons of the school district’s handling of this matter, available here. Of note, Mr. Allen concludes that the first-year teacher involved was “ill-equipped to deal with what turned out to be the concerns of a few of the third-grade students in her class, who were saddened by the photo of a dead deer on Domonique’s shirt,” and that “[t]he Principal was ill-advised to be on the side of the teacher rather than standing up for what’s right.”
Update 12 (Jan. 9): Welcome, Angry Patriot, USMessageBoard, Gossip Coffee, and DC Whispers readers!
Update 13 (Jan. 10): Yesterday @DaveVUrbanski of The Blaze had this report, and @DavidKrayden of Daily Caller had this report.
Update 14 (Jan. 10): Today Tom Ticcotta (@TCiccotta) of Breitbart has this report.
Update 15 (Jan. 14): Welcome, Bowsite.com readers!
Update 16 (Jan. 17): Welcome, RokSlide.com readers!
* * * * *
The problem of left-wing public school teachers and administrators bullying school children for thinking and acting like normal Americans seems to be a continuing one.
Two years ago Wisconsin talk-radio host Vicki McKenna, in a story which quickly went national, outed Wisconsin school principal Melissa A. Horn for bullying an 11-year-old boy, threatening to expel him for bringing a “virtual gun” to his virtual (i.e., home) school. His offense? Displaying a tiny picture of a gun, with an American flag, on the computer which he used only at home — an image viewable by no other student. See blog posts here, here, and here.

Melissa A. Horn
About a month ago, Vicki’s colleague Mark Belling (the godfather of Wisconsin conservative talk radio) outed a Wisconsin public school teacher, Courtney Hiers, for bullying her entire class, via a public Facebook post in which she called her students “racist” for rejecting her liberal whitewash of Islam.
Now Vicki has outed a Ohio public school teacher for bullying a nine-year-old girl, Domonique Yatsko. Domonique’s offense? Proudly displaying a photo (containing no gore), on her sweatshirt, of her posing with a buck she had shot on her first day of deer hunting. Specifically, this photo:

Domonique Yatsko
As Vicki has previously urged, to have any hope of combating the malignant leftism which is entrenched in much of the public educational system, and to have any success in deterring public school employees from bullying children who are raised in conservative households, conservatives need to “name names” — to publicly identify, and castigate, the offenders.
The name of the bullying teacher at Hinkley Elementary in Hinkley Township, Ohio, is Hanna Copa [Update: Google+ page down; copies archived for historical reference purposes here, here, and here].

Hannah Copa
Ms. Copa is in her first year of teaching, on a one-year contract. In 2011 she graduated from Elyria Catholic High School [Update: webpage down; cached copy here; copy archived for historical reference purposes here]; an elite institution in rural Ohio. She obtained a B.S. degree in early childhood education from Ashland University, having apparently completed most of her college credits [Update: Google+ page down; copy of relevant page archived for historical reference purposes here] at Lorain County Community College.
When Domonique showed up at school wearing her sweatshirt, proud of bagging a buck in her very first day of deer hunting, Ms. Copa reportedly shamed the girl, causing students at the school to ridicule her, telling the girl: “killing animals is not what we do.” After being ridiculed for her sweatshirt, Domonique threw it in the trash when she returned home.
Neither Ms. Copa nor the principal, James Carpenter, apologized for this bullying of a young girl for having engaged in a legal recreational activity, even after Domonique’s mother, Heidi, pressed the matter. The principal’s defense? “We don’t have dead animals in school.”

James Carpenter
For those interested in Vicki’s take on this story, here’s a clip of her entire discussion (under six minutes) in her Madison show yesterday afternoon:
As Vicki mentioned, her segment was based on an excellent article in Outdoor News written by Mike Moore (@ScribeMoore).
The Medina Gazette has a followup article by Halee Heironimus (@haleeautumn) who reports that the school superintendent, Catherine Aukerman, concedes that Domonique’s sweatshirt did not violate the school’s dress code.

Catherine Aukerman
It appears that neither the teacher nor the school principal has apologized to Domonique, even though her mother Heather has made clear: “I was looking for an apology for my child, that’s all.”
For those interested in contacting the teacher, the principal, and/or the superintendent to urge that the teacher and principal issue a public, written apology to Domonique, here is their contact information (of course, if you write or call them, you should be as professional and respectful in tone as you would expect them to be in dealing with you or your child):
Teacher: Hannah Copa: hcopa@highlandschools.org
Principal: James Carpenter: jcarpenter@highlandschools.org;
(330) 239-1901.
Superintendent: Catherine Aukerman:
aukerman@highlandschools.org; (330) 239-1901, ext. 1217.
Also, contact information for the Board of Education is here. The contact information for its president, Dr. Norman Christopher, is here.
That teacher and the administrators should be ashamed for their hateful and hypocritical behavior. Have any of them eaten a hamburger, or do they have any leather in their shoes?
Mean, hateful people like this have no business being entrusted with educating our young people. This offensive behavior should not be tolerated. I demand that they all issue a public apology and be forced to attend counselling where they learn to tolerate the viewpoints of others, and to stop being judgemental. If not they should be imediately fired.
The parents of that poor girl should look into a suing the district because of the emotional pain and suffering caused by the judgemental, offensive, and hateful actions of this “teacher”.
The Leftwing school district and Hillary shill vegan teachers should be all fired at once and be pimp slapped with a penis for being unamerican! Time to retaliate against the district. We the people and not a communist party running the schools, start a petition and slander the district…
I’ve had experience working for a school district. They are the most arrogant, self-important, egotistical criminals you will ever see. We need to fix the public school system with a total shutdown for a year, then hire people interested in being public servants, not overpaid primal donnas.
Anyone in the world could have written this comment; it contains no information that only someone who’s worked for the school district would know. And it’s amazingly vague.
Please e-mail me (at thebadger14@gmail.com) using your real name, and give me your street address, so I can confirm that you live near the school district.
If you do so, I’ll confirm in another reply here that your identity someone who quite possibly has worked for the school district has been confirmed.
If you don’t within a few hours, we’ll know it’s a hoax.
It’s fine if you don’t want to be publicly identified with your comment (obviously I won’t share your information with anyone), but if you’re unwilling to give me the information I’d need to verify the authenticity of your comment, obviously I and everyone else will assume it’s a hoax.
Badger Pundit, Is your reply to John’s, above? I’ll tell ya what. I can tell by his statement alone that there is a very high probability that John is truthful. You however sound like one of those psuedo-intellectuals we hear so much about.
ANSWER FROM BADGER PUNDIT: Yes, I was replying to John. He (or she) didn’t supply any identifying information, so I assume it’s a hoax and have ignored comment.
I agree with suing the school for emotional harm … unless we go over to total and complete war against these educational diet and cultural tyrants, we will be facing an unrelenting war by Marxists/vegans against us at every turn.
[…] Badger Pundit reported: […]
[…] Badger Pundit reported: […]
[…] https://thebadger14.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/despicable/ […]
[…] Badger Pundit reported: […]
Side note: Elyria, Ohio is not rural!
Thanks for clarifying. Apparently the school’s 20 miles outside a big city, with a nice big campus, so relatively speaking it struck me as okay to call it “rural.”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elyria_Catholic_High_School
Hey Mr Carpenter, If you serve a balanced lunch with any eggs or meat then you do have dead animals in your school idiot! Thank God my kid is home schooled.
[…] Badger Pundit reported: […]
Whether or not the teacher and principal are vegans is NOT the point. This child’s teacher bullied and shamed her in front of the class. THAT is what is wrong.
Lol..this is great. You guys don’t have a clue what really happened. I have a child in the school and this account is just plain false. The teacher not only did not bully anyone, she was just asking the girl to remove the sweatshirt because of other students being upset by the image of the dead buck. Hunting is fine- I hunt and so does my family. But some little kids may not want to see the dead buck on a sweatshirt during school. Think of wearing a hoodie with a dead relative in a casket or a dead pet to a third grade class. It may upset a few children. This post is perfect for the Star or the National Enquirer but not for reasonable folks. God Bless you all. P
Beta-male and I say your story is a lie! By the way, man up and educate your own children or don’t you have the balls to man up and educate your own children? Beta-male.
Anyone in the world could have written this comment; it contains no information that only a parent with a kid in the school would know.
Please e-mail me (at thebadger14@gmail.com) using your real name, and give me your street address, so I can confirm that you live in the school district.
If you do so, I’ll confirm in another reply here that your identity as a parent with a child in the school has been confirmed.
If you don’t within a few hours, we’ll know it’s a hoax.
It’s fine if you don’t want to be publicly identified with your comment (obviously I won’t share your information with anyone), but if you’re unwilling to give me the information I’d need to verify the authenticity of your comment, obviously I and everyone else will assume it’s a hoax.
You Paul are one of those F’ing “cupcake” individuals we’re having to put up with. The children who were “upset” seeing the picture of a girl holding a deer by the antlers have no more rights than the girl with the shirt. All of you idiots feeling need for protection from everything should be withdrawn from the world……forcefully if necessary.
lol…So Joe Douche-er…an old man talking shit…too funny..you i’d kick the fuck out of. wouldnt even be a fight old fuck…and cherokee mic feather wearing fuck- love to meet any of u r one on one in hand to hand combat without your guns..fucking internet pussies…i posted a realistic view not a nut job view…feel free to go fuck your selves..i’m sure you are all closet asslickers anyway
Obviously Paul isn’t, as he claimed, a parent with a kid in the school (see above). I suggest everyone ignore him. No need to waste time on liars.
apparently comments are filtered for cupcakes like you, so what I wanted to tell you was, as you prefer, canceled, kind of the same plan you seem to favor for the children, force the one student to bow down and apologize for her shirt. You may be a hunter, but you’re not much of an American. I feel sorry for your child.
Comments aren’t filtered, or deleted, on this blog.
yeah Paul unmasked himself to be seen a mile away! sry Badger abouy my cmmt above, it seems your cmmt was in the wrong place responding to John.
So your rage is still lingering over your disappointment that Hillary couldn’t be elected dogcatcher!! You liberals provide so much fodder, it’s too easy. Go ahead, lace the internet with you fully operational potty mouth.
Thank you thank you!! The truth!
Medias fault for not researching!!! This is beyond hypocritical…. America is the true bully towards the teacher!
Care to elaborate? Who in the media failed to research? Who’s bullying the teacher? I don’t understand your comment.
These idiots should be VERY careful about this kind of nonsense. It is a federal crime to suppress a person’s constitutionally protected rights, and it is a further crime to conspire to do so. This could land them up to 20 years in federal prison (10 years for each count). While the previous administration has not been keen to enforce these civil rights laws, the new administration might not be so shy about applying the law. Don’t believe me? Look it up on the FBI website here:
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/civil-rights/federal-civil-rights-statutes
..:*** SCHOOL NAZIS BEWARE ***:..
Teacher is a koolaid, drinking idiot. Why doesn’t she go bully Libtards who enable ISIS. ISIS is hunting humans and beheading them.
This worthless teacher has closed her school e mail acct.
No dead animals?So meat and leather os forbidden?
See Update 5 to the post. Turns out that yesterday the kids were shown part of an actual, dead animal (not just a photo) — an animal hide. Apparently they survived it.
[…] DESPICABLE: Teacher bullies 9-year-old girl for deer hunting: “Killing animals is not what we do!… […]
They don’t have dead animals in the school? Do they only serve vegitarian foor in the cafeteria? Do they not allow students to bring meat in their lunches? That was just a brick stupid statement by the principal, trying to defend the teacher. Looks like a certain school district should have some additional training on bullying for their teachers. AND should require that both the teacher and principal PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE to both the student and the test of the school for not only bullying the student, but for allowing and encouraging other students to bully her as well.
http://www.outdoornews.com/2017/01/08/school-action-hunter-creates-controversy/
Knowledge is a virtue!!! http://www.outdoornews.com/2017/01/08/school-action-hunter-creates-controversy/
Pete, thanks for posting this. I was unaware of it. I posted an update on the blog post.
Just a note of advice: in addition to keeping all correspondence polite and professional, I would start at the top with the School Board, making sure to CC: those you feel wise. Point out that ALL replies AND lack thereof will be noted, and reported on. The School Board is a purely political animal that relies on the voters of their community for their jobs. They, especially, will have a complete meltdown on those involved if they believe that THEY might pay a price for this unless they can be seen to have taken a stand that their constituents will see as being in line with their views. As the county of Medina is a more rural county, I am betting that they want to keep this incident as quiet as possible, since the more aware that the voters are, the more likely that they are to not react positively to this story, and vote accordingly.
For future reference, the fact that somebody does something you don’t approve of does not imply that that person is left wing, liberal, or elitist. The teacher in question is one of the most conservative people I’ve ever met. She’s a white, rural Ohio Catholic. That should be the default assumption if you haven’t met her, and if you had, you know it for certain.
They are still shaming children 😪