Local Stupidity Goes National

The alternate headline could just as easily be: "Dumb Texas Hicks Don't Know Art From a Hole in the Wall":

...Ms. McGee, 51, a popular art teacher with 28 years in the classroom, is out of a job after leading her fifth-grade classes last April through the Dallas Museum of Art. One of her students saw nude art in the museum, and after the child’s parent complained, the teacher was suspended.

Although the tour had been approved by the principal, and the 89 students were accompanied by 4 other teachers, at least 12 parents and a museum docent, Ms. McGee said, she was called to the principal the next day and “bashed.”

She later received a memorandum in which the principal, Nancy Lawson, wrote: “During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations.” It cited additional complaints, which Ms. McGee has challenged.

The school board suspended her with pay on Sept. 22. In a newsletter e-mailed to parents this week, the principal and Rick Reedy, superintendent of the Frisco Independent School District, said that Ms. McGee had been denied transfer to another school in the district, that her annual contract would not be renewed and that a replacement had been interviewed.

For any of our readers not from Texas, Frisco-where this teacher worked-is not exactly a backwater. It's a gleaming, spanking new suburb full of people who prize themselves on being thoroughly modern. It has and Ikea superstore, and they built Texas' only soccer-specific stadium there for crying out loud. So I don't know if this one can be attributed to the Texas general lack of sophistication when it comes to culture, or just some bozo parent that got his/her panties in a wad and some bozo principal looking for an excuse to fire a teacher. But seriously...do they have to write about this stuff all the way up in New York? We look bad enough as it is sometimes.

If you'd like to ask the Frisco ISD Board of Trustees to stop embarassing Texas nationally, here's some useful contact information:

Shana McKay-Wortham
FISD Director of Communications
Email: mckays@friscoisd.org
Phone: (469) 633-6060
Fax: (469) 633-6050