This Embarrassing School Sign Stayed Up for More Than a Week. After a Photo Hit Social Media, Guess What Happened to the Principal.

A New Jersey elementary school principal is being demoted days after a photo was posted on social media of a sign outside the school with badly misspelled words, the Paterson Press reported.

A sign at Public School No. 20 noted "Dicember 2014" events, among them the "Progress Reepor" scheduled for Dec. 18.

In addition a time was listed as "1:00—PM," and the numeral 1 was positioned backward on a line announcing that the Paterson school — whose motto is "Proper Planning Promotes Success; Failure Is Not An Option!" — would be closed Dec. 24 through Dec. 31.

Image source: Facebook

The sign stayed that way for more than a week and apparently no one noticed, school officials told the Press. Then, city school board member Corey L. Teague posted a photo of the sign on Facebook, copying six other members of the school board.

"How can we expect our children to learn how to spell when the administration can't??" he wrote in the caption.

After one commenter asked, "Is this Common Core?" Teague replied, "If this is common core we are [in] serious trouble..."

[sharequote align="center"]"If this is Common Core we are [in] serious trouble..."[/sharequote]

"It puzzles me that a sign that big was overlooked for so long," Teague told TheBlaze Wednesday. "It's a pretty big billboard."

Teague said it raised another question: Were staff members checking that entrance? "Every entrance should be checked every day for safety," he said.

School officials told the Paterson Press that the gaffe was the result of a custodian who misapplied magnetized letters and numbers.

Principal Antoinette Young is being reassigned as a vice principal, district spokeswoman Terry Corallo told TheBlaze. Vice principal Boris Simon is serving as interim principal.

Corallo wouldn't confirm if Young was being reassigned because of the sign mishap, telling the Press it's a "personnel matter." School officials told the newspaper Young had been under a "corrective action plan" to address performance issues.

Neither Young nor the union head for city principals commented.

Teague said he wasn't looking to get Young in trouble for the sign: “I was just trying to say we shouldn’t accept things like this,” Teague told the Press.

While the Paterson Press reported that the sign was located outside a side entrance not used by the principal or staff, the School 20 image used on the district website appears to show the same sign and archway — all the way down to a small white mark on the red arch — but indicates it's the front entrance.

Image source: Facebook

Image source: Paterson Public Schools website

When asked about the apparent similarity of the photos of the signs and entrances, Corallo told TheBlaze, "Whether a sign is on a side entrance or main entrance is irrelevant."

Teague told TheBlaze the sign he posted is at a main entrance, not a side entrance — and it's on a main street where "a lot of cars go by." Teague added of the entrance, "If no one uses it, they don't need to put a sign there."

District records show Young has been the School 20 principal for less than two years, the Press reported, adding that her salary at the start of this school year was $108,000. Corallo wouldn't tell the Press if her salary would be cut.

(H/T: NJ.com)