aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
No tolerance for gay-tolerant teacher
WOODBURN, Ind. School district officials have suspended the journalism teacher at a Fort Wayne-area high school two months after the student newspaper published a sophomore’s editorial advocating tolerance for homosexuals.
Woodlan Junior-Senior High School teacher Amy Sorrell says she was told yesterday that she had been placed on paid leave while East Allen County School officials review whether her contract should be terminated.
After the editorial ran in the Woodlan Tomahawk’s January 19 issue, school district officials told Sorrell and the newspaper’s staff that Principal Ed Yoder would need to approve all content before future issues were printed. Yoder also gave Sorrell a written warning for insubordination and failing to carry out her responsibilities as a teacher.
In recent weeks, the school corporation has tweaked its student newspaper policy to clarify that the principal of a building is to serve as the publisher of the newspaper and should be familiar with its content before distribution.
The change was primarily in the wording of the policy and does not change the intent, Melin said.
“The principal has the ultimate obligation to know what the content is,” he said. “We’re holding everyone accountable for what’s occurring with student publications. We’re not saying it’s all on the adviser or the students. The principal has the ultimate responsibility, but it’s a shared responsibility of the adviser and principal. That’s why it’s critical that they work together.”
Advance Indians says, “The problem here is the students are actually better informed, more mature and apparently more educated than the people trying to run the school. How sad.”
Pam has the full text of the student editorial.
