A Bellevue High School physical education teacher is in hot water after sending a stream of tweets commenting on the worthiness of the Bellevue High School football program and one of its players.

In a string of tweets sent from his personal Twitter account on Dec. 6, Desmond wrote several disparaging comments about the Bellevue High School football team and allegedly football player Tyson Penn.

In one series of tweets, Desmond wrote of a 6’5” Bellevue football player who will be attending Oregon State University and alleged that the student “dogs it” every day in his class.

It was announced last month that Penn will play for OSU next year.

Marisa Spooner-LeDuff, Penn’s legal guardian, said that Penn was confused and hurt by the tweets, which she called a defamation of Penn’s character.

“His assassination of Tyson’s character is just unacceptable,” she said. It is also concerning given that Penn is still in Desmond’s class as of Dec. 10, despite a letter she wrote to Bellevue High School Principal Scott Powers on Dec. 7.

In another tweet, Desmond responded to another Twitter user who had wrote there is really nothing worse than Eastside Catholic and said “Yeah… Bellevue is worse.” He also alleged that the Bellevue football players would be receiving bonuses for coming in second place to the Eastside Catholic Crusaders in the Class 3A state championship.

His Twitter account was reportedly deleted later that day. Desmond has not responded to requests for a comment.

Desmond reportedly has a history of contentious behavior with Bellevue football players, including Spooner-LeDuff’s son, who was a football player for Bellevue High School two years ago.

“They have all of these anti-bully campaigns, (Tyson) is always hearing from teachers and coaches not to put things on social media, but here’s a grown adult doing it and attacking him personally,” she said.

The comments were reportedly seen by several players and members of the community.

“To have a person of leadership make these statements relative to a program many of his students are involved in shows, at a minimum poor judgement, if not capriciousness in his duties…From my point of view, I see no possible scenario (in which) Mr. Desmond can continue in his role providing academic credentials for a group of students he clearly disdains,” parent Don Jones wrote in an email to Powers.

In response, Powers told parents that Assistant Principal Russell White would be addressing the situation with Desmond.

“We can’t comment on personnel issues, but we do know it is being addressed,” district spokesperson Elizabeth Sytman told the Reporter. The school is reportedly investigating the incident.

The Bellevue School District does not have any policies on employee’s social media accounts.