Grandfield_A controversial play could cost Grandfield High School teacher Debra Taylor her job.  She teaches the school’s Ethics and Street Law class, and says she was told by Superintendent Ed Turlington not to run a play titled “The Laramie Project.”  The play is about a gay person who was murdered.  After being forbidden to put on the play, Taylor held a mock funeral for the play in class so students could have closure.  She says the mock funeral got her suspended.

7News spoke with Taylor, students, and parents on Thursday, but Turlington did not comment after our calls or emails.  Taylor says she can’t comment either, but she hopes for a positive outcome. 

The students say the superintendent didn’t think the subject matter of the play was appropriate for the community.  Student Amber Squires says she doesn’t understand why her teacher was suspended.  She says the class has covered other mature matters in the past, and that the matter must have been sensitive to school officials.  “Our ethics class goes over stuff like that all the time,” she said.  “Abortion, stem cells – this topic was very sensitive to our school or the school board.”

Amber says it wasn’t the sensitive subject matter that may have caused controversy.  “They were trying to turn it into that we were promoting gay rights’ or something,” she said.  Her mother agrees and wonders why Turlington waited until the students had worked for one month on the play before cancelling it.  “He would know in advance what it was supposed to be about – that’s what I don’t understand about this whole thing is about,” said Elizabeth Squires.

Elizabeth says the entire thing may have been a misunderstanding from the beginning.  She says the superintendent should have given it more thought.  “He just took it the wrong way,” she said.  “I don’t think he read the script, or knew what the story was really about.”  Amber says she now is using her teachers own classroom lessons to defend her.  “She always taught us to speak our minds and have our voices heard,” she said.

Amber says that the class has been turned into a reading class, and students have had to start the class over.  She says they have had to learn a completely new curriculum.  Turlington says the school board plans to meet next week to determine whether they will keep Taylor on as a teacher.  He says he may be able to comment after that meeting.

 See Grandfield teacher suspended for controversial play surrounding …

KSWO 

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — Theater directors and students at more than 40 high schools across the country have selected a new show for their big springtime musical this year: “Rent: School Edition,” a modified version of the hit Broadway musical that, while toned down a bit, remains provocative by traditional drama club standards.

Too provocative, in the view of some high school officials and parents. At least three of the planned high school productions, in California, Texas and West Virginia, have been canceled after administrators or parents raised objections about the show’s morality, its portrayals of homosexuality and theft, and its frank discussions of drug use and H.I.V., according to administrators, teachers and parents involved in those cases.

“Rent,” which ran on Broadway for more than 12 years and in 1996 won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award, is based loosely on Puccini’s opera “La Bohème.” It centers on a group of artists, straight and gay, living in the East Village. Some are H.I.V. positive; some are drug addicts; some are in recovery.

None of these aspects have been altered for the high school version. The main changes are the deletion of some profane dialogue and lyrics as well as a song, “Contact,” that is sexually explicit. In “Rent,” that song accompanies the death of Angel, a gay drag queen with AIDS; in the high school version, his death unfolds in an earlier song.

The 2008-9 school year is the first in which the school edition of “Rent” — which was approved by the estate of Jonathan Larson, the “Rent” creator who died in 1996 — has been available to high schools.

 See 3 high schools cancel “Rent” productions amid objections over gay, HIV themes
The New York Times

Attorneys for the ACLU have sent a letter to Big Bear High School saying that school officials cannot prohibit students from wearing anti-Proposition 8 T-shirts.

Proposition 8, which amended the state Constitution to ban gay marriage, was among the most divisive issues on the November ballot and continues to inspire protests and boycotts.

The day before the election, sophomore class president Mariah Jimenez wore a home-made T-shirt that said “Prop 8 Equals HATE.” Her sixth-period teacher sent her to the office, where the principal told her that she would have to take off the shirt before returning to class because the shirt’s message was divisive.

But attorneys for the ACLU have argued that schools cannot prohibit speech simply because it is controversial; only speech that incites a disturbance can be prohibited, ACLU attorneys said.

 See Gay marriage debate at Big Bear school over anti-Prop. 8 shirt
Los Angeles Times, CA -

COLUMBIA, S.C. — School officials say the South Carolina high school principal who said he would resign because of a gay club at the school has changed his mind.

Irmo High School principal Eddie Walker had said he would retire in May because his values conflicted with a proposed Gay-Straight Alliance.

Lexington-Richland District 5 spokesman Buddy Price told The State newspaper Thursday that interim superintendent Herbert Berg got a letter from Walker that said he wanted to stay. Price says Walker’s contract will be up for renewal in the spring.

See WCBD

SC principal rethinks resignation over gay club
Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC