The staff at Ulysses, Pennsylvania’s Northern Potter High School is giving “Survivor: Palau” a failing grade.
The school’s beloved English teacher, Wanda Shirk, was voted off the island during Survivor: Palau's first episode – and her singing may be to blame. The perky 55-year-old sang a few songs to motivate the castaways, but she ended up annoying the group instead.
Wanda can always go back to singing for her students at Northern Potter High.
“She’s our official birthday song girl," the school's principal Susan Valentine told me in an interview Friday. "She serenades students for various recognitions, whether it’s academic or being a good citizen, or showing improvements in grades. In fact, she’s behind in her singing duties because of Survivor.”
How do her coworkers feel about Wanda being kicked off the show so fast?
“We’re kind of mad about it actually,” Valentine said.” I have one other teacher who looked up someone at CBS and complained that it’s absolutely unfair that Wanda was kicked off and that they didn’t play the game properly. That’s not the way it should have happened."
Wanda’s students are equally upset. “Her students think she’s great and they think she got a raw deal,” Valentine said.
But despite the school's outrage, they are happy that Wanda has returned to work. “We’re glad to have her back,” Valentine said. “Unfortunately, I don’t think her fellow cast members got a chance to really get to know her. To know her is to love her and we all do. We’re very sad that that happened to her.”
