HOUSTON – Energy Institute High School French teacher Albert Moyer greets students with “Bonjour!”

Beyond that, he doesn’t know a lick of French.

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“I thought it was a joke, I couldn’t believe this was happening,” parent Sharonda White said of learning her son’s French teacher doesn’t know how to speak French.

Moyer, who studied French for one year in high school, took over as the long-term substitute for the school’s French class after district officials removed the previous teacher, Jean Cius, over some sort of dispute and relegated him to roaming halls in a different district building, KHOU reports.

Neither officials with the Houston Independent School District nor news reports detailed why Cius was removed. The dispute occurred in December and he was later ruled fit for duty, but district officials did not return the teacher to his post.

“It makes me extremely sad,” Cius told the news site. “I feel bad for the fact that the kids are not learning.”

Cius, who taught French at Energy Institute for 25 years, is now working as a hall monitor at a different campus, he said.

“I feel bad for the taxpayers because they’re paying me for not doing anything at all,” Cius said.

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District officials refused to discuss the situation, and instead issued a generic statement.

“It can often become a difficult task to find certified foreign language teachers, in the middle of the academic school year, to fill the needs of the district,” the statement read. “Effective French teachers are especially hard to come by. However, the district continues its efforts to hire talented foreign language teachers to instruct HISD students. HISD strives to ensure all students have access to an education that will help ensure they are successful academically and ready to complete in a global economy.”

Fox News reports students in the class are on their own if they have questions, and are instructed to look for answers online.

District official never notified parents that Cius was removed from the French class and replaced with non-French speaker until after KHOU highlighted the situation.

Student report cards also still list Cius as the instructor.

“How can you be on the report card as giving a grade when you were never there?” a KHOU reporter as Cius.

“Ha, ha … that’s the question,” he said. “I’d like to know the answer to those questions.”

Folks who commented online, of course, were not impressed by the district’s human resources management.

“That is today’s American school system,” njostradamus posted. “Unqualified people posing as educators, and simpletons acting as school administrators.”

“Give me a break,” MTPHOG wrote, “he identified as a French teacher.”

“Down near our porous southern border (thanks, Obama) we have union teachers who can’t speak English teaching English,” obummer1 added.

“Won’t be the first time someone’s being paid to do a job they know nothing about,” Theotherrick posted.