Pierce County teacher gave emotional lecture. Now, she’s on leave amid an investigation

A Spanaway Lake High School teacher last month recounted her son’s troubled life and eventual death by police, revealing intimate personal details for nearly an hour in a lecture to students that broached sensitive themes of mental health, drug use and gun violence.

When Rose Triana-Boman finished the presentation, which left her often visibly emotional and had been intended to explain why she went into teaching, she asked her fifth-period algebra class of mostly freshmen if anyone had questions. No one raised their hand.

Now, the Bethel School District is seeking answers.

The longtime math teacher is on paid administrative leave as the school district investigates whether any rules were broken after her presentation was secretly recorded by a student and posted to YouTube under the title, “Teacher Mental Breakdown.”

“We’re reviewing the teacher’s conduct and the conduct of the student who made the recording in class,” Bethel School District spokesperson Doug Boyles told The News Tribune.

A recording of Triana-Boman’s lecture was uploaded on March 29, the day after she gave the speech, onto an account called, “Bethel Schools.” It was unclear if the student who made the recording was also who posted it.

Triana-Boman was placed on leave the same day that the video went online, according to Boyles.

He said that school district officials had reported the video to YouTube, seeking to get it taken down, and also reported the account for imitating the district’s official channel on the social media platform.

The video, which was no longer up after the account was terminated on either Monday or Tuesday, had been viewed over 1,300 times and garnered more than 40 comments. The comment section appeared polarized, raising questions about privacy issues, use of electronic devices in class and what’s fit for high school kids to hear from their educators.

A person writing under the now-defunct account, “Bethel Schools,” said the teacher’s personal story had been inappropriate, potentially harmful to students and a waste of class time. They criticized the teacher for giving the lecture without seeking parental or guardian approval and for using language they said was impermissible for students.

Some agreed, with one person writing that Triana-Boman deserved to be fired.

Others expressed concern that she was being unfairly chastised for imparting a valuable, if raw, cautionary tale, with some believing that posting the video under such a title was disrespectful and a disservice to the teacher, students and the community.

“Shes a great teacher and telling kids about her personal experiences through her life can help others get through similar experiences,” wrote one person, who suggested they had been in the classroom and that Triana-Boman had informed students that she planned to tell the story.

Prior to the account being deleted, The News Tribune twice reached out to the person who uploaded the video but did not get a response.

Thus far, the teacher’s presentation and its emergence online has prompted little offline backlash, with the district receiving only “a small number of comments from community members and parents on both sides of the issue,” Boyles said in a statement.

But the speech and how it ended up on YouTube is now at the center of a district investigation that could prematurely end Triana-Boman’s career.

In the video, which was viewed in full by The News Tribune, the teacher informed students that they’d be the last to hear the story because she planned to retire when the school year ended in June. She has been employed with the district for nearly 20 years, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Bethel Education Association president Janet Caldwell said by phone that the union was aware of the situation. The BEA did not address The News Tribune’s questions and Triana-Boman, through Caldwell, declined an interview.

What did Triana-Boman say?

Neil Triana, Triana-Boman’s son, was 22 years old when he was shot and killed by two Tacoma police officers during Memorial Day weekend in 2005. The incident spurred a coroner’s inquest, with a six-person jury concluding that the officers had done nothing wrong.

In her lecture, Triana-Boman reflected on her divorce from Triana’s father, the family’s move from Tacoma to escape gangs and having her son arrested for domestic violence when he broke household items in anger over switching schools.

She detailed his grapples with depression and thoughts of suicide, her regular searches of their home for drugs she suspected he might be using and the regret she carried after sending him to live with his father.

Triana-Boman also recollected that her son was injured in a shooting prior to his police encounter, and she showed the class a photo of him hooked up to tubes in a hospital bed.

Several years after that shooting, police pulled over a vehicle Triana was in for expired tags. He and a friend had been smoking marijuana. Triana-Boman said her son had a gun on him, panicked and pulled the weapon on the officer.

Triana was shot at close range, and the officer was struck in the leg. The officer kept shooting after her son, who was still holding onto the gun, had fallen to the ground, according to Triana-Boman.

“What are you going to do when someone keeps shooting at you?” she asked the class. “You’re gonna shoot back.”

Authorities had said the traffic stop in the 4700 block of South Cushman Street turned deadly after Triana pulled the gun and threatened to shoot the officer. The officer, Ryan Lane, shot Triana and then was struck in the leg by gunfire.

Officer Chris Karl responded to Lane’s radio call for backup and later testified that he shot Triana after Triana raised his gun at him.

Ultimately, Triana was shot 13 times, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Although painful, Triana-Boman concluded that the story of her son was one of hope because it led her to join the teaching profession.

There’d been at least a dozen students that she’d been able to help with their own mental health challenges, she said, and she personally knew what it meant to be depressed and suicidal. She encouraged students to share their problems with people they trusted and to “be your best you.”

“I became a teacher because you need somebody who believes in you,” she said, wracked by emotion, “and I believe in you.”

Broken rules?

Triana-Boman had given this lecture in previous years. By her own telling, it was not well received by administrators at Spanaway Middle School. She said she had been “banned” for a couple of years from the school because the story was deemed “too traumatic.”

It was unclear whether she was prohibited from teaching at the school or merely from telling the story there, but she said more than 200 young students had subsequently signed a petition seeking to allow the lecture to continue to be delivered.

Boyles said the district was unaware that Triana-Boman had given the presentation to students in the past or that it had received flak at the middle school.

Its investigation will determine what, if any, school policies might have been violated.

Bethel School Board president Brenda Rogers told The News Tribune that she expected the board would be notified of the district’s findings.

“This is a matter of concern to the board and to the administration,” Rogers said.

The district board policy manual says that instructional certificated employees must prepare daily lesson plans in a format specified by a principal or program director.

It’s obvious from a warning on the dry erase board seen in the student-recorded video that students were not allowed to use electronic devices in class during the lecture. District policy also forbids use of such devices during regular school hours except in cases of an emergency or unless authorized by a teacher or administrator. Using devices to violate another individual’s privacy is also not permitted.

Expectation of privacy was the subject of debate between two YouTube commenters, who sparred over whether a classroom was a publicly accessible space and if capturing a class lecture or teacher’s behavior was warranted in this instance.

“Secretly recording the incident then posting it on a public forum in such a way as to mislead the public was not only inappropriate but will certainly lead to consequences,” one person wrote.

In response, a commenter who appeared to be the person who uploaded the video, writing under a different account name, rejected any notion that their actions were irresponsible or potentially libelous and claimed they acted in good faith to bring attention to a “serious issue.”

“[T]he issue at hand is not solely about the legality of the recording, but also about the safety and well-being of the students in the classroom,” they wrote. “The behavior exhibited by the teacher in the video raises concerns about her ability to provide a safe and appropriate learning environment for her students.”

In 2019, the ACLU of Washington published a tech guide for students that outlined their “rights and responsibilities in the digital age.” The guide noted that it is against state law to audio-record a private conversation without the consent of everyone who is recorded. On the subject of videotaping, the document suggested that schools might have rules in place.

“If such policies exist, you could get in trouble by breaking the rules against taking a photo or video,” it said. “For example, if you use a cell phone secretly to capture a video of your teacher and post it on YouTube from home, you could face discipline.”