‘Punch in the gut’: Hilton Head teacher reassigned after TikTok video draws backlash
A Hilton Head Island Middle School teacher who was reprimanded by the Beaufort County School District last month for a TikTok video posted to a personal account has been reassigned to another school.
Lane Cogdill, who has taught eighth-grade history the past two years, was informed Thursday that they would be transferred to the adult education center in Beaufort.
The move comes more than two months after Cogdill, who identifies as nonbinary and uses singular they/them pronouns, posted a video to a personal TikTok account saying Black Americans built this country and thus have the right to “burn the motherf----- to the ground” in protests, prompting debates throughout South Carolina on freedom of speech and responsibilities of teachers. The video has since been deleted.
The district reprimanded Cogdill on July 18 for use of profanity and encouragement of violence, and the reprimand went in Cogdill’s personnel file. Cogdill sent a rebuttal letter, which includes a transcript of the video and context to their statements, which will be included in the file as well.
On Tuesday, school district spokesperson Candace Bruder confirmed Cogdill is still employed by the district and had been reassigned but declined to provide additional details, saying she was “unable to comment, as this is a personnel matter.”
On Aug. 13 — the same morning The Island Packet published an article interviewing Cogdill about the TikTok video and the reaction to it — Cogdill met with Superintendent Frank Rodriguez, middle school principal Pat Freda, and school district human resource director Alice Walton to discuss their rebuttal letter to the reprimand.
A week later, when Cogdill went to the middle school to trade their district tablet, Freda asked Cogdill to come to her office, where they called Walton. Over the phone, Walton told Cogdill that Rodriguez had decided to assign them to the adult education center.
“I knew reassignment was a possibility, but it still comes as a punch in the gut when I’ve committed myself to this school for the last two years teaching, coaching softball, and doing other extracurricular activities,” Cogdill said. “I’m very much part of the school community.”
Cogdill related that during interactions with Rodriguez, he said the district was continuing to gets calls and emails from parents who were unhappy with the TikTok video incident. But Cogdill said multiple people from the community, including some parents of their former students, also wrote emails supportive of keeping Cogdill at the middle school.
Cogdill posted copies of some of those letter publicly on Facebook on Tuesday.
On Monday, Cogdill wrote a lengthy email to Rodriguez asking him to reconsider the reassignment and allow them to continue teaching at the middle school. Cogdill talked about their love for teaching the specific age group and their emotional connection to the middle school’s community.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Cogdill had not received a response.
“It’s hard to believe this is about a concern for students and not just a concern about a public relations problem,” Cogdill said. “At what point does the district step up and do what’s right instead of just being concerned about PR?”
Cogdill said it’s been frustrating that despite all of the peaceful activism they’ve done, it feels “like people on both sides of the issue as this point are focusing entirely on one post I made and one sentence in that post.”
This story was originally published August 26, 2020 at 4:30 AM.
