BREAKING NEWS: Local teacher lauded as hero for taking sick day.

After waking up feeling incapable of facing another day lecturing slack-jawed, apathetic students with no thirst for knowledge, Jeffrey Burntout made a heroic decision that has all of education abuzz with praise.  He called in sick and sat on his sofa all day, wearing only his bathrobe and watching “Law and Order” reruns.  Burntout, a high school history teacher, explains his decision candidly:

“Well, if I’d gone to work that day and saw one more student playing on their smart phone instead of listening to my lecture on the Civil War, I might have strangled them right on the spot, so I felt it was best for everyone involved if I just stayed home.  These kids are dumb, really dumb, and they’ve sucked all the joy out of sharing the history of our great nation, a subject I once felt so passionate about.  Now, I contemplate complex murder-suicide plots almost daily.  I just needed a day to myself without grading answers that claim Snoop Dogg convinced Obama to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Burntout has received praise from virtually everyone associated with his school district from the principal to the State Comptroller for Educational Financing.

“It’s really remarkable, what he said,” claims Beanie Counter, the State Comptroller.  “A complex murder-suicide inside the classroom could’ve cost the state millions in litigation, so really, his action of calling in sick is truly admirable.  I personally have nominated him for Teacher of the Year.”

“This is a great day for education,” adds  Dr. Jen Touchyfeely, Professor of Emotional Studies in California.  “Who could calculate the emotional toll a complex murder-suicide would have had on the students, teachers, and administrators who survived the attack?  Burntout is an inspiration to all of us.”

Dr. Lottastatz of the Center for Researching Research also hails Mr. Burntout’s actions as heroic:

“The numbers are quite clear.  99.9% of all teachers today contemplate murder, suicide, or murder-suicide on a daily basis.  The remaining .1% have been on the job for less than a week, so his actions provide hope to all that a day of lounging on the couch can be a healthy outlet for teachers who have to deal with the dumbest generation in American history.  I’m not just speaking in anecdotal terms here, either.  The research shows that without their smart phones and laptops, these kids would get lost in their own bedrooms.”

Even Mr. Burntout’s students condone his actions, as illustrated by Natalie Erehead, class valedictorian and student in Burntout’s AP American History during fourth block.

“Like, really, it was so much easier to text with the sub in the room.  Mr. Burntout knows all our little tricks, so it was a great stress relief for all of us not to have to come up with new ways to hide our phones instead of listening to stories that have nothing to do with Lady GaGa or ‘Jersey Shore.’  I hope…”

At that, her phone buzzed and Erehead’s eyes glazed over as she frantically typed her response to a message about the socks a sophomore had worn that day.

“Can you believe someone wore matching socks on Mismatch Monday?  Stupid sophomores.”

The Bureau of Educational Bureaucracy even supports Mr. Burntout’s sick day.  In a recent press conference, the BEB hails him as the best and brightest of all teachers today, putting the needs of the system above his own desires to strangle a student.  In its statement, the BEB describes how murdered students do not count at the end of the year, so by taking a day off, Mr. Burntout kept the passing ratio above Federal guidelines, thus ensuring funding for his school.

“I don’t feel like a hero,” Burnout says.  “I’m just one of many dedicated teachers trapped in a broken system, but I really enjoyed the ‘Law and Order’ marathon.  They showed some old episodes when Michael Moriarty was still the Assistant DA.  Those are my favorites.  The show was much grittier back then.  If you’ll excuse me, I have a stack of tests to grade, and the BEB gets awfully upset if I don’t accept answers that Snooki led the march for women’s rights.”

With that, I left Mr. Burntout to his work, grateful to know that our nation’s future is in the hands of so many dedicated professionals.

Editor’s Note: the BEB has read and approved this message as a positive portrayal of the All Children Left Behind and Race to a Stop Acts.