State’s Top Teacher Resigns as School Tries to Force Her to Change Student’s Failing Grade Over Parent Pressure

An award-winning Tennessee teacher has left the classroom for good after administrators changed a student’s failing project grade over her objections. Samira Hardcastle said district officials intervened after the student’s mother complained, overruling the teacher rather than accepting the grade the student had earned. Hardcastle now says she will never teach in another school district.

Hardcastle taught for eight years in Metro Nashville Public Schools and most recently worked as an art teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Antioch. She was named the school’s 2025-2026 Teacher of the Year and also received a Blue Ribbon Teacher honor from the district. She resigned in May before taking her complaints to the Metro Nashville Board of Education and appearing Sunday on “Fox & Friends Weekend.”

“You were asked to change the grade. You refused, but the school did it anyway, right?” host Rachel Campos-Duffy asked. “Right, and it was at the hand of the district,” Hardcastle answered. Campos-Duffy then asked whether administrators had intervened because of pressure from the student’s parents.

“It is definitely pressure from the parents,” Hardcastle said during the Fox News interview. She added that changing grades also benefited the school system by improving its numbers. “However, I mean, it works out for the district because it makes our scores look better,” Hardcastle said.

Campos-Duffy asked what Hardcastle planned to do next and whether she would continue teaching despite her objections to the district’s policies. “Absolutely not. I have left teaching for good,” Hardcastle replied. “I just own my art business, Artwork by Samira, and I will not return to teaching in any district, in any state at all.”

Hardcastle said pressure from parents was “one of the biggest” problems facing public-school teachers, but she cited broader ethical concerns as well. “There are lots of ethical issues within the school system, from grades to retaliation,” she explained. “A lot of teachers can’t speak up because they’re afraid of, you know, having something happen to them. So there’s so many, so many issues.”

Watch Hardcastle explain why she left teaching here:

Hardcastle told local FOX 17 that students in her nine-week art course were allowed one chance to redo a project if they scored below 70. The student allegedly failed to complete the project during class and did not use the additional opportunity. The project grade left her with a C in the course, which the parent reportedly challenged because it would keep the student off the A-B honor roll.

“I was told to change the grade,” Hardcastle said. “I did not think that it was ethical, and so I did not. I refused.” Metro Nashville Public Schools disputed her description, saying the student later submitted missing work, which a principal reviewed and graded under district policy. Hardcastle maintained that the student had already passed up the permitted second chance and completed the later artwork at home after leaving her class.

Hardcastle told Campos-Duffy that overruling teachers in such disputes sends students a destructive message. “It gives them a false sense of entitlement. They can’t take no for an answer. They believe everything should be given to them,” she said. “It ultimately takes away their work ethic. There’s no pride in anything that they accomplish, which will seep into the work industry as they grow older.”

She also accused the district of discouraging teachers from formally documenting classroom behavior because reports could reflect poorly on individual schools. “When we have behaviors, you know, we try to talk to the parents. The parents side with the child,” Hardcastle said. “We want to write them up and document it. We’re not allowed to because the district will come down on our school.”

Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.