Teacher won’t be charged for ‘inappropriate’ tweets

NEWARK, Calif. — The teacher whose Twitter messages expressed violent thoughts about students will not be charged with a crime, police said Thursday.

Investigators found that Krista Hodges – whose tweets said she wanted to “stab some kids” and wished two students “would get hit by a car” — did not rise to the level of criminal threats, said police Cmdr. Mike Carroll.

“The tweets, while inappropriate and unprofessional, did not meet the elements (required) to establish a violation of the code,” Carroll said in an email.

Police said they spent three weeks interviewing students, teachers and other school district employees.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office declined to file charges after reviewing the probe’s findings.

Hodges, a Newark Memorial High School instructor, had used expletives to describe students in some posts on her Twitter feed. Other tweets said she wanted to dump coffee on students and that some of the teenagers in her class “make my trigger finger feel itchy.” She has apologized for the tweets, saying she handled herself unprofessionally but meant none of it seriously.

She received a written reprimand from school district leaders but was not fired.

The investigation’s results “affirms our conclusions,” said Tim Erwin, Newark Unified’s assistant superintendent of human resources. “While the district followed legal due process, it is critical to understand that we deplore the remarks and disavow them completely.”

Hodges has been on paid leave since Aug. 28, a day after her social media messages were reported in the media.

The teacher left the classroom voluntarily, drawing from a bank of earned leave hours that every teacher can use for paid personal time off, district leaders said.

The scandal drew negative attention to Newark Unified, appearing as a topic on the “Today” show and nationally known websites.