HALLSVILLE, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Hallsville Board of Education will hold a closed session ahead of its 6 p.m. public meeting to discuss “personnel matters” after two teachers were placed on paid administrative leave following backlash over social media posts about Charlie Kirk.
Kirk, a conservative activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was killed in a shooting on Sept. 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University. He was 31.
Following his death, social media accounts matching the names of school district employees Anthony Plogger and Kayla Lewis were seen sharing posts from a social media page called “So Informed” that read:
“May all of our children grow up to live in a country that values their lives enough to take gun violence seriously and reject any person who would try to justify senseless gun-related deaths – especially the deaths of children,” the post shared by the employees says. The post had also referred to Kirk as a white nationalist.
Screenshots of the posts were shared around social media by public pages and community members. The school district wrote in its letter that the employees had “voluntarily removed the posts.” The screenshots do not show the employees giving additional comments.
Records obtained by ABC 17 show that Plogger is a seventh grade social studies teacher who was hired on June 7, 2021, but didn’t begin teaching full-time until Aug. 6, 2025. Lewis is a middle school counselor who has been working for the district since Aug. 12, 2021. However, the district would not confirm that Lewis and Plogger were the teachers placed on administrative leave.
The school district wrote in a letter to parents that two employees were put on paid leave, pending the outcome of a review.
“We want to clarify that social media posts made by employees of the school district in their personal capacities and outside of their school duties do not reflect the opinions of the District or the Board of Education, nor are they endorsed in any way by the District. As a public school district, we recognize that our role is to create a learning environment where all students feel safe and valued,” the letter says.
The district says that Superintendent Tyler Walker made the decision to release the statement, adding that Walker is working closely with the district attorney.
State Rep. John Martin (R-Columbia) had commented about the situation on his social media page, demanding that the employees be fired.
“To extend no empathy means you don’t care about someone’s pain, utter disregard, blaming, ridiculing or dismissing someone’s struggles or tragic situations. So, when these two teachers say they do not care that a person was assassinated in our country, they are promoting violence against people with whom you disagree,” Martin wrote on Facebook.
Kirk considered himself a passionate supporter of free speech and a vocal critic of “cancel culture.”
In June, Kirk spoke at the Oxford Union debating society in London, where he criticized British laws after a woman was arrested for a social media post urging people to “set fire” to hotels housing migrants. Her post came in response to the July 2024 Southport attack, when the teenage son of migrant parents fatally stabbed several people.
“You should be allowed to say outrageous things,” Kirk told the crowd in London. “You should be allowed to say contrarian things. Free speech is a birthright that you gave us, and you guys decided not to codify it, and now it’s proof, it’s basically gone.”
On May 2, 2024, Kirk also posted on social media: