Update on Episode with Lawton Area Teacher

Students upset over resignation

 

Grandfield ethics teacher submits resignation over ‘The Laramie Project’

 

BY ZEKE CAMPFIELD
STAFF WRITER
ZCAMPFIELD@LAWTON-CONSTITUTION.COM

 

   GRANDFIELD — A group of students at Grandfield High School and at least one of parent say they are angry with school administration for how it handled a recent dispute over controversial literature.
   In recent weeks the school canceled the ethics and street law classes mid-semester and suspended the teacher, Debra Taylor, after a series of events concerning an inclass production of “The Laramie Project.”
   The true-story play is about a gay Wyoming college student who was murdered and about hate crimes, speech issues and life in rural communities.
   On Friday, Taylor resigned — and school officials insist it was not because she wanted to teach “The Laramie Project.”
   “I think it’s a classic ‘tempest in a teapot,’” said school attorney John Moyer. “I can’t tell you what was in a confidential document ... but the fact that the superintendent and employee were able to resolve this would tend to tell you that people’s rights weren’t being violated.”
   “But we just want a voice in the school,” said Matt Ebner, 18, a senior. “We don’t like that it got into a ‘gay’ issue, and we don’t like that an ethics class was canceled over an ethical issue.”
   “And we lost a fantastic teacher over a silly issue,” said Elizabeth Squires, the parent of a sophomore.
   
Students say they have been  intimidated    

In the two weeks since the issue boiled over on campus, the students who continued to complain about the administration’s actions say they’ve been intimidated by other teachers; now students are calling out each other, and some faculty members, by name on an online blog — and groups both supportive of and against gay rights are getting involved.
   A controversial anti-gay group from Kansas, Westboro Baptist Church, has scheduled a demonstration for later this week and on Saturday the Norman chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) issued a statement saying school administrators should embrace ‘The Laramie Project’ and other controversial literature as a way “to create a culture where everyone is welcomed, embraced and valued.”
   “It is not only sensible, but imperative,” read the statement.
   “This is absurd,” said Ed Turlington, the school’s superintendent. “I run the school, and I’m not going to allow obscenity, and that’s what it boils down to.”
   Turlington has received the harshest criticism of the dissenting students — two of them went on the record as saying Turlington ranted vocally against homosexuality in front of the English class.
   He denied the accusations.
   “If I hated gays, I wouldn’t tell kids,” Turlington said.
   The students said other teachers and the principal are remanding and intimidating them for even discussing the topic.
   “I think because our school is little, some teachers think they can get away with things,” said Misti Jackson, a 17-year-old senior, during a meeting Friday. “There’s a few people that have power, and they can just do what they want.”
   Jackson and three other students — plus a fifth on speaker phone — spent a couple hours at the Squires’ residence in Grandfield on Friday explaining what’s made them so upset.
   Taylor said her former students have spent two weeks trying to get a grip on the actions of their superintendent, the alleged oral epithets and condemnation from the students, parents and community members who support Turlington.
   
‘Harshness of contrast’    

She said it is the “harshness of the contrast” between the lessons learned in ethics class and the ideas of their disciplinarians that is making this difficult for the students.
   “They saw their project being canceled because of Turlington’s personal feelings (and) suddenly he exhibited the behaviors of a very prejudice person,” she said. “In their teen mind, prejudiced people stop plays about gays.”
   Taylor said it was one thing for the students to experience their project getting shut down, “but then they see these demonstrations of exactly what they were learning not to do. I was teaching them to be compassionate, to be tolerant, and most of all I was teaching them that hate words are the seeds of violence.”
   Squires said she is disappointed with the administration because she feels like her 15-year-old daughter’s education is being sidelined for morality issues.
   She and her daughter, Amber, a sophomore, moved to Grandfield from Lawton about 2½ years ago and claim Taylor was one of a few teachers at the school who challenged and pushed Amber to be analytical.
   “They’re getting rid of Mrs. Taylor so they can get in who they want to teach what they want and to say what they want,” Squires said. “But what are they going to do when they go to college if they don’t have teachers that make them actually think?”

Discipline key to education    

The school has been in trouble in past years for low test scores, Turlington said, but a strong program of discipline since he took the superintendent job four years ago has changed all that.
   “Discipline is the key to education, and without it you have no classroom, you have no learning, you have nothing,” he said.
   Turlington adopted an elective course on the Bible as a piece of literature this year, and started to push for a school uniform policy in Grandfield last fall before he realized it would be an undue financial burden for the many impoverished families in the district.
   He said he sees his No. 1 duty to prepare the students for college or work.
   “And I know that that language is not acceptable in a business of any kind,” he said of the play. “We have a handbook — and when they get in college, they can express themselves more.”

Comments

[michael]

just heard about this through PFLAG email. is there anything other people can do? i'm from a small town in oklahoma myself and it would seem so surreal for westboro OR a large glbt group to show up on opposite sides of the highway and yell at each other.

and yet, if it were my own family friend, i would want them to have all the support they could get...if there was not enough from our own town.

what to do? my heart aches over it.

i live in stillwater right now. any news, if i can do anything, i'd like to know more.

[gennee]

I pray the students wll hang in there and stand up for what is right. I pray that Fred Phelps does show his face there.

Gennee

[Scott]

The best way to counter Phelps, and what most groups do, is what was done by the group in Laramie and is part of the play. To silently stand.