So, remember that DC librarian who forced third graders to reenact the Holocaust? Students were cast as Adolf Hitler, there were mock executions, the digging of graves. There was rightfully an uproar. The librarian knew it was wrong too. She told her students not to tell their parents. Well, when you say that—the kids are going to spill it, lady.
There's now an investigation because this sort of stuff is ridiculous. It's in bad taste. Did this book lady hit the crack pipe before thinking, "Hey, this would be a great interactive lesson for one of the most heinous crimes ever committed"? The Washington Free Beacon dug around and found out more about this woman, and she's a full-blown trainwreck:
The Washington, D.C., public school librarian who made third graders reenact graphic scenes from the Holocaust is a Democrat who claims she ran for office in New Jersey, where she was convicted of defrauding the state through a tutoring scam and charged with several counts of animal abuse.
Kimberlynn Jurkowski was placed on leave this week after parents complained to Watkins Elementary School that she made students role-play the Holocaust, assigning students to be Jews and pretend to die in gas chambers and dig mass graves, according to the Washington Post. One student was assigned to be Adolf Hitler, who carried out the Holocaust, Jurkowski told the students, "because the Jews ruined Christmas." A Washington Free Beacon investigation found that Jurkowski was hired by the D.C. public school after a scandalous tenure as a librarian in New Jersey, where she ran in 2010 for a local school board as a Democrat, according to an image posted to her Twitter account.
There is no record of Jurkowski serving on the school board for Hamilton Township in Atlantic County, where she says she ran for office. There is record, however, of New Jersey catching Jurkowski bilking taxpayers out of approximately $24,000 through a program designed to help the children of the state's educators. The Hamilton Township district paid for Jurkowski's two children to receive tutoring—but she continued to bill the district for reimbursements once the tutoring stopped. She was convicted of fraud and forced to forfeit her librarian job, according to court records.
Jurkowski's legal problems continued in 2019 when she faced four charges of animal cruelty for leaving her dogs out in the cold. According to coverage at the time from Pet Rescue Report, Jurkowski left five dogs behind to survive frigid temperatures in a dilapidated environment. Body camera footage from police officers called to the site shows "the entire property was completely run down," with "dogs in pens with sheets of plywood leaning against a fence to act as shelter."
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She abused her dogs. It just shows how thorough the vetting is with the DC public school system. Dog abusers and alleged tax fraudsters can become librarians and take students on the Willy Wonka boat ride to hell when it comes to instruction. You can easily teach students the horrors of this genocide without doing what Jurkowski did. It's that simple. And yes, it's not shocking in the slightest that the kids were emotionally scarred by this lesson. I would say this is shocking, but we've seen worse from teachers and instructors in public education as of late.
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