Rochester Public Schools Superintendent Michael Muñoz plagiarized a Thanksgiving message sent to his district’s staff.
Teachers uncovered the superintendent’s plagiarism after they noticed that his email, which was intended to thank them for their work during the pandemic, contained multiple typefaces. A quick Google search of Muñoz’s message shows that he copied nearly every word from other superintendents in Albany, New York, and Hernando County, Florida, as well as a school district in California and an op-ed in a newspaper, Med City Beat reported.
Muñoz, who has served in his position since 2011 and earns $228,300 per year, later admitted to his misdeed.
“I want to say I am really sorry that I made the bad choice that I did to plagiarize the Thanksgiving letter that was sent to you last week,” the superintendent said in an email to staff on Monday morning. “I was taught by my father to own up to your mistake and I am doing that now. It was wrong what I did and trying to explain what led me to do this would just come across as making excuses and I don’t want to do that.”
However, anonymous educators who spoke with Med City Beat don’t seem quite ready to forgive their boss.
“How do I expect and demand the best of my students — because I teach them what, and how dishonest, plagiarism is — and then excuse it, or ignore it, when the superintendent does it?” one asked, rhetorically, in an interview with the outlet.
This is not Muñoz’s first brush with controversy. Earlier this year, he was accused by city councilman Michael Wojcik of withholding information about free land that was offered to the district for a new school, reports KAAL.
