Florida teacher says she was fired for defying school's 'no zero' policy

A South Florida elementary school teacher says she was fired for refusing to give students credit for work they didn't turn in, according to a report from television station WPTV.

Port St. Lucie teacher Diane Tirado taught U.S. history at West Gate K-8 School until she was fired on Sept. 14, she told WPTV. She said her school has a "no zero" policy that requires educators to give students at least a 50 percent grade for all assignments - even if the students don't turn in any work at all.

Tirado left a message to her students on a whiteboard and posted a photo of that message on her Facebook page. She commented that an administrator erased her message, so she wrote it again.

WPTV reported that there's no clause mentioned in the letter from the principal since she was still in her probationary period.

“I’m so upset because we have a nation of kids that are expecting to get paid and live their life just for showing up and it’s not real," Tirado told WPTV.

On Tuesday morning Tirado posted on her Facebook page: "The reason I took on this fight was because it was ridiculous. Teaching should not be this hard. Teachers teach content, children do the assignments to the best of their ability and teachers grade that work based on a grading scale that has been around a very long time."