A Virginia public school district has reportedly suspended a substitute teacher identified as
John Stanton due to comments he made during an eighth-grade Spanish class at Swanson Middle School.
John Stanton, 65, was suspended by Arlington Public Schools(APS) via a letter on Tuesday notifying him that he was suspended due to “an allegation of comments made to students during instructional hours regarding sensitive world events with Russia and Ukraine.”
According to The Post, APS wrote in its letter that Stanton can file a petition for his reinstatement within five days, but Stanton refused to do so.
Stanton reportedly made the remarks while he was teaching an eighth-grade Spanish class at Swanson Middle School on Friday.
“I said, ‘Here’s what’s going on,'” Stanton told The Post. “[But] the statement I think that got me was I said, ‘I personally support the logic of Putin,’ and what I meant by that is, he made a rational decision from his perception.”
Stanton also said he told students to read multiple news sources, including state-run Russian media outlet Sputnik News.
Stanton, 65, previously worked for Sputnik News as a reporter, but was fired in 2018 after he provided information about the outlet to an unnamed third-party source.