DC educator who made third-graders reenact the Holocaust made over $100k, has criminal history

In the initial debut of the story about the scandal at Watkins Elementary School in the DC area – the principal declined to identify the staff member behind it all.

(The situation involved the staffer assigning a Jewish kid the role of Adolf Hitler and telling him to pretend to commit suicide. Other moments entailed third-grade students doing an imitation dig of mass graves.)

But in a follow-up today The Washington Post unmasked the teacher involved as 61-year-old librarian Kimberlynn Jurkowski.

"Jurkowski forfeited a job as a school librarian in Hamilton Township, N.J., after a jury convicted her of fraud in 2013. Prosecutors said the city paid for Jurkowski to provide tutoring for her children but that she continued billing the district for nearly $24,000 for months after the tutoring had ended."

The Post then outlines the school district’s oversight in conducting a proper background check.

According to a deeper dive by Matthew Foldi of the Washington Free Beacon, the background of the teacher in question, Kimberlynn Jurkowski, reveals a portrait of criminal behavior, animal abuse, and political awakenings.

The picture Foldi revealed of Jurkowski suffices in revealing political leanings. Jurkowski's tweets in reaction to the 2020 George Floyd riots show a personal radicalization that evidently impacted her work. The personal stake of Kimberlynn was that she connected it back to her June 2010 campaign for Atlantic County Democrat Committee's District Three.

"Teach, lead, and expose hidden Truth" Jurkowski wrote. "There is no record of Jurkowski serving on the school board for Hamilton Township in Atlantic County, where she says she ran for office," Free Beacon notes.

She also backed the National Educators United (NEU) union "#OnlyWhenItsSafe" teacher’s union effort to dictate when educators should return to the in-person classroom. Before the pandemic, Jurkowski’s account documented her more hands-on approach to the classroom.

The Free Beacon report spotlights Jurkowski's mistreatment of animals. A local outlet out of Atlantic County, New Jersey uploaded police body camera footage showing officers conducting a wellness check at her residence.

As their write-up indicates – one of the dogs involved in this situation was later found dead. Jurkowski was charged with "several animal cruelty charges" for this ordeal.