PHILADELPHIA -
The Philadelphia teenager who claims she was taunted by her math teacher when she arrived in class wearing a "Romney-Ryan" t-shirt last Friday, now says she's afraid to go back to school.
Samantha Pawlucy didn't hear the dismissal buzzer at Charles Carroll High School in Port Richmond Thursday.
She never made it to class.
Says she was afraid to go.
"A lot of kids are mad at me," she told Fox29.
"And they're threatening me. People have written on their own Facebook page saying that it's better off if I don't come back to school. People are mad at me, and that it doesn't matter what happens- I'm not going to be there long because people say that they're going to come hit me."
Samantha's claim that her math teacher humiliated her over her choice of presidential candidates—she's only 16 and can‘t yet vote-- has thrust the teen into the media spotlight.
She spent part of her day doing radio interviews.
Despite all the hoopla, she says reporting the incident was the right thing to do, "because it's what I believe in- what I stand for.
Because I felt like she said that to me because I was wearing a Mitt Romney shirt- because I support Mitt Romney."
The Pawlucys last saw the teacher during an emotional meeting with the principal on Monday.
"She said, 'I'm sorry, but you should have known I was joking,'" said Samantha.
Added her mother Kris: "I kind of explained to her that 'whether you meant it as a joke or not, Sam didn't take it that way and it was pretty embarrassing her for her, so it's not acceptable."
The teacher- whose name we are withholding- for now- was not in school Thursday, and we could not reach her by phone.
But her student makes clear what she wants to happen next: "I don't want her in the building," said Samantha, "so...yeah, fired."
Philadelphia School District officials make clear the student did nothing wrong.
They say they have interviewed the teacher and will complete their disciplinary investigation once they have a formal, written complaint from the Pawlucy family.
In conversations with other students at Carroll High School, the teacher was described as "popular," but with a biting, sometimes sarcastic, sense of humor.
Samantha Pawlucy, 16, says she is now afraid to go to school.
