4 min read

Art teacher suspended due to museum trip

An Art teacher with 28 years experience is out of a job after taking her fifth-grade classes last April to the Dallas Museum of Art. Why? One of her students saw nude art in the museum, and after the child’s parent complained, the teacher was suspended! This infuriates me beyond belief! Why is this a problem? A Times article relays more of the details, please notice the OFFENSIVE art pictures in this post, yep, those are the pieces of OBSCENE art that got this teacher suspended! Consider yourself warned, get the kids outta the room!

…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." Continue reading _“The episode has dumbfounded and exasperated many in and out of this mushrooming exurb, where nearly two dozen new schools have been built in the last decade and computers outnumber students three to one. A representative of the Texas State Teachers Association, which has sprung to Ms. McGee’s defense, calls it “the first ‘nudity-in-a-museum case’ we have seen.” “Teachers get in trouble for a variety of reasons,” said the association’s general counsel, Kevin Lungwitz, “but I’ve never heard of a teacher getting in trouble for taking her kiddos on an approved trip to an art museum.” John R. Lane, director of the museum, said he had no information on why Ms. McGee had been disciplined. “I think you can walk into the Dallas _? ]_. In citing the students’ exposure to nude art, Ms. Lawson also said “time was not used wisely for learning during the trip,” adding that parents and teachers had complained and that Ms. McGee should have toured the route by herself first. But Ms. McGee said she did exactly that. In the latest of several statements, the district contended that the trip had been poorly planned. But **Mr. Gibbs, the district’s lawyer, acknowledged that Ms. Lawson had approved it**. Ms. McGee and her lawyer, Rogge Dunn, who are exploring legal action, say that her past job evaluations had been consistently superior until the museum trip and only turned negative afterward. They have copies of evaluations that bear out the assertion._

_“This is very painful and getting more so,” she said, her eyes moistening. “I’m so into art. I look at it for its value, what each civilization has left behind.” School officials have not named the child who complained or any particular artwork at issue, although Ms. McGee said her puzzlement was compounded when Ms. Lawson referred at times to “an abstract nude sculpture.”** Some parents have come to Ms. McGee’s defense**. Joan Grande said her 11-year-old daughter, Olivia, attended the museum tour. “She enjoyed the day very much,” Ms. Grande said. **“She did mention some nude art but she didn’t make a big deal of it and neither did I.”** She said that if Ms. McGee’s job ratings were high before the incident, “something isn’t right” about the suspension. Another parent, Maijken Kozcara, said Ms. McGee had taught her children effectively. “I thought she was the greatest,” Ms. Kozcara said. But “knowing Texas, the way things work here” she said of the teacher’s suspension, “I wasn’t really amazed. I was like, ‘Yeah, right.’ ”_ And of course, _“Ms. Lawson and Mr. Reedy did not return calls. A spokeswoman for the school district referred questions to the school board’s lawyer, Randy Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs said, “there was a parent who complained, relating the complaint of a child,” but he said he did not know details."_

So take some time and share your opinion with the Frisco Independent School District, or directly with the Principal, Nancy Lawson, or with the Superintendant Rich Reedy. Additionally you can contact the museum. Let’s hope that common sense prevails and this woman gets her job back.