Tag: public schools

School defends hiring of drag queen arrested on child porn charges

Western Heights Public School District in Oklahoma is defending its decision to hire a drag queen who was arrested on child porn charges, the Daily Caller has learned.

Dr. Shane Brent Murnan, 52, was hired as an elementary school principal at John Glenn Elementary, the Substack V1sut first reported. In a Facebook post, Murnan celebrated a “new district and new respect,” according to the report. Murnan’s personal Facebook page appears to have since been deleted.

Murnan had his personal devices confiscated by police in 2001 on suspicion of possession of child pornography, according to V1sut. Then a fifth-grade teacher at Will Rogers Elementary School in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Murnan was arrested two weeks after the confiscation. Appeals Court Associate Judge Dave Allen said that it was “clear from a review of the pictures that they do represent child pornography,” The Oklahoman reported at the time.

Payne County District Judge Donald L. Worthington dismissed the charge against Murnan in August 2002, after Murnan’s attorneys said that he obtained the pictures by accident, and maintained that the age of the individuals in the photographs could not be proven, The Oklahoman reported. At the time, Murnan did lose his teaching job. Murnan’s record was expunged and the charges were dismissed after completing probation for a drug charge in October 2003, according to the Oklahoma State Courts Network.

Murnan became a school teacher at a rural Oklahoma school district in 2007, moving to an elementary school position at Oklahoma City Public Schools in 2016. Murnan worked as an assistant vice principal from 2020-2022 before his hiring as a principal.

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Children made to write apology letters in school to Aboriginal Australians ‘for taking their land’

Children as young as 10 are being made to write letters in school apologising to Indigenous Australians for ‘taking their land’, pictures reveal. 

The images taken by a parent were sent to One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson, who posted them online.

The letters, written by primary school children, were put together on pieces of paper shaped in the form of a megaphone with words referencing the nation’s colonial past.

‘We are sorry for everything that we have done,’ one letter reads. 

Another said: ‘We are sorry to Aboriginals. We took your land and we have now we feel sad of what we have done.’

‘Aboriginal people should have many more rights and should be treated nicely they should be also be a aboriginal voice to parliament [sic]’. 

Senator Hanson said teachers should ‘hang their heads in shame’ for psychologically burdening children with historical guilt.

‘Under no circumstances should innocent children bear the guilt of historical events, especially events that occurred long before they were even conceived. ‘This is not education; it’s emotional manipulation,’ she argued.

‘What legacy are we leaving for future generations if we instil in them a sense of guilt and shame for things they had no part in?

‘Rather than moving toward unity and social harmony, we are planting seeds for further discord and division.’

It comes after a mother on Thursday revealed how her daughter was told by teachers at her school to ‘go home and influence your parents to vote Yes’ for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

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Parent Slams California School For Holding ‘No Whites Allowed’ Kids Playdate

A parent at a California elementary school has slammed officials for sanctioning a playdate for kids that essentially segregated them by race, and excluded white children.

A flyer for the event at Anthony Chabot Elementary School in Oakland, CA notes that it is “for black, brown and API families.”

“If your family identifies as Black, Brown, or API or are [sic] a parent/caregiver of a Black, Brown, or API student. Come hang out while we get a chance to know each other and build our community as we kick off this schoolyear [sic],” reads the invite to the event.

Ironically it was hosted by the school ‘equity & inclusion committee’.

Taking to social media, the parent noted “I dunno about others, but I’m genuinely upset about what ultimately boils down to a “No whites allowed” playdate.”

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‘Teacher of the month’ who likes to ‘build relationships’ with pupils charged in student sex assault case

A Tennessee high school teacher who’d been awarded “teacher of the month” has been charged with statutory rape after allegedly having sex with one of her students. 

Casey McGrath, a 28-year-old geometry teacher at Chattanooga Central High School, was suspended without pay in March after a months-long investigation into alleged “inappropriate physical contact with a student” WTVC reported.

She was indicted on Aug. 14 and charged with “unlawfully and knowingly engag[ing] in sexual penetration with a person of at least 13 years of age, but less than 18,” according to court documents obtained by Fox News.

The indictment noted that she is “at least 10 years older than the victim.”

McGrath was arrested on Aug. 18 and is out on release after posting a $10,000 bond. She is scheduled to be arraigned in Hamilton County Criminal Court on Sept. 6.

McGrath — who had also taught at nearby East Ridge Middle School, according to school records. She had recently been nominated by Central High School students as “teacher of the month,” according to an online article in the school’s newspaper that has since been taken down.

The teacher told a student reporter that her favorite part of the  day was “getting to interact with students and build relationships with them” — despite challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Feds Demand Action on School Sexual Misconduct. Will California Heed the Call?

Across the nation, schools have repeatedly hidden instances of teacher misconduct that, in some cases, allow educators to inflict the same behaviors on more students. 

San Francisco’s public school district has entered into resignation agreements with 19 employees accused of sexual misconduct since 2017, The Standard previously revealed. One of those teachers had left another Bay Area school under separate sexual misconduct allegations 20 years prior, unbeknown to administrators. 

To prevent schools from unwittingly hiring teachers credibly accused of sexual misconduct, federal education officials want states to tighten regulations. Though criminal background checks are required for most school staff across the nation, the U.S. Education Department warned it creates a false sense of security. In a July 2022 report, the department called on states to enact more protections. 

California is one of many states that does not explicitly prohibit the suppression of information about employee misconduct. And, nearly one year after the federal report, state leaders have made little progress in assessing what needs to be done. Gaps also remain when it comes to tracking non-credentialed school staff accused of misconduct, and in tracking records of staff from out of state.

In response to questions regarding potential new practices, the California Department of Education said, it “has, by statute and regulations, a limited role in local matters with public schools. Any change to this oversight would require legislative action.”

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How the Victorian Education Department’s historical child sexual abuse scandal was hidden for decades

On June 27, 2019, the viewing areas of Melbourne’s County Court were a hive of nervous energy as Justice Gabriele Cannon arrived to deliver a sentence that would publicly account for the private sorrows of dozens of people in the room.

Slumped beside his defence counsel, a 78-year-old former primary school teacher who’d once sneered at his victims that they’d never be believed was now a diminished and defeated figure.

But it was not just the reputation of Vincent Henry Reynolds on trial that day.

Warning: This story contains details of child sexual abuse

The story presented of Reynolds’s career would soon be understood as a microcosm of the unravelling crisis of historical sexual abuse in the Victorian education system. It would reveal in granular detail the methods by which the Victorian Education Department had covered up the sexual abuse of children — methods that lawyers for survivors say have been identified in dozens of other cases. 

The catchwords for Cannon’s sentencing remarks were succinct and compelling: “historical sexual offending”; “42 charges”; “38 child complainants”; “period of offending about 31 years”; “abuse of power”; “gross breach of trust”; “brazen and prolonged offending”; “systemic failures in duty of care”.

Yet as disturbing as the raw numbers were, they sold short the devastation wrought by Reynolds’s decades of rampant abuse of children placed in his care at government-run schools, reflecting only the reported cases of those who’d both survived their ordeals and mustered the strength to endure the justice system’s lengthy and often dispiriting delays.

One after the other, survivors stepped forward to read victim impact statements to the court.

“The Education Department knew he was a sick child abuser, knew that he preyed on kids, but they turned him loose on me and my classmates, and on lots of other kids in country Victoria,” one of them would later say.

Survivors who’d spent decades negotiating their traumas alone now gathered as a collective, participating in the unfortunately rare experience of personally witnessing the comeuppance of their abuser.

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Playground Sign Outlaws ‘Loitering at Slide Entry or Exit’

“Welcome! Play Safe,” reads the sign at a Fairfax County Public School playground in Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. The sign also lists a few simple rules—21 of them, by my count.

First off, the playground should never be used when it is frozen. Or wet.

There can be no climbing on things like the safety rails (which are basically just fences). Kids must not wear any clothing with drawstrings, hoods, or toggles while they are playing, because these items could get caught on something. (Ponytails seem grandmothered in.)

On the slide, children must “take turns,” “sit in an upright position,” and “not climb.” There also must be “no loitering at slide entry or exit.”

Loiter not, little ones!

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Student Refuses School’s Order to Remove American Flags from Truck, Switches to Homeschooling

A Virginia teen said his First Amendment rights are being violated after school officials told him to remove the two American flags mounted on his red Toyota Tacoma truck.

Staunton River High School officials told senior Christopher Hartless that the patriotic display was a distraction to other drivers and a safety concern, WSET reported.

“I don’t understand how it’s a distraction if they have one on the flagpole that every other student can see,” Hartless told the news outlet.

His parking pass was revoked. His stepmother, Christina Kingery, said she didn’t want him to take the bus, so his family took him out of the high school and is homeschooling him.

Officials from the high school’s Bedford County school district in  released a statement noting that flying flags on vehicles is against “the student parking contract” that Hartless apparently signed, “which has been used by all 3 of our high schools for many years.”

The school district released a statement regarding the incident to parents regarding the school district’s code of conduct rules:

The BCPS Code of Student Conduct prohibits “Attire that has language or images that are offensive, profane, vulgar, discriminatory, or racially/culturally divisive. This would include confederate flags, swastikas, KKK references, or any other images that might reasonably be considered hurtful or intimidating to others.” It does not include wearing clothing with American flag logos or prints on attire. This attire is allowed.

The statement also noted to parents that the Pledge of Allegiance is recited every morning.

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Parents remove their four-year-old daughter from pre-school after she was shown ‘Grandad’s Pride’ book featuring men in bondage gear and trans ‘top surgery’ that was written by winner of Waterstones Children’s Book Prize

A couple have taken their four-year-old daughter out of a pre-school after they say they were branded bigots for complaining about a book featuring men in bondage and with trans ‘top-surgery’ scars. 

Will and Maria Taylor, of Hull, East Yorkshire, were horrified when they spotted ‘images of men who are partially naked in leather bondage gear’ in the pages of Grandad’s Pride.

One image featured trans men with ‘top surgery’ scars, sparking a furious reaction from parents who claims that it encourages body modifications too early. 

‘Top-surgery’ involves either the removal or augmentation of the breasts, which if undergone by a trans man means breast tissue is taken out and the chest is contoured to emphasise the pectoral muscles. 

‘Grandad’s Pride’ is the creation of Waterstones children’s book winning author and illustrator Harry Woodgate – who uses they/them pronouns.

When the couple approached Genesis Pre School in Hull with their concerns over the overtly sexualised images, they were shocked when the school refused to apologise for stocking the book.

The book, which has a 4+ reading aged, tells the story of Milly spending the summer in Grandad’s cottage by the sea.

When Milly is playing in the attic one day, she unearths Grandad and Gramps’ old Pride flag. When Grandad explains to Milly what Pride is, he and Milly plan a Pride march in the village.

The BookTrust, which promotes children reading, has already warned parents: ‘The illustrations in Grandad’s Pride include realistic depictions of what a Pride march might look like, including a person dressed in adult leather wear and some images which are culturally sensitive.

‘Parents and carers should read the book before sharing.’

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Texas School District Threatens to Seize 79-Year-Old Man’s Home for Stadium Parking Lot

A family in Houston, Texas, is at risk of having their generational home seized to make way for the expansion of the adjacent high school football stadium’s parking lot.

In April, the Aldine Independent School District voted to authorize the use of eminent domain to seize the home and surrounding acre of land currently owned and occupied by 79-year-old Travis Upchurch, reported the Houston Chronicle in July.

The land has been in Upchurch’s family since 1916 when his relatives first immigrated to the area from Sweden. At the time they settled there, the area was predominately agricultural, dominated by dairy farms and pecan trees.

Beginning in the 1970s, Aldine ISD started purchasing up the land around the Upchurch property as part of the construction of its current football stadium. Today, it’s surrounded on three sides by stadium parking. The vacant lot abutting the fourth side of the property is also owned by the district.

“My dad has pretty much been in a high school football stadium parking lot since then,”  Travis Upchurch’s daughter, Tara Upchurch, tells Reason.

Tara Upchurch says that she had expected Aldine ISD would want to buy the land once her father passed away. Her family’s expectation was that until then, he’d be able to stay in their longtime family home.

That expectation was upended in June when Travis Upchurch received a letter in the mail informing him that the school district was intent on purchasing his land as part of a $50 million rebuild of the existing stadium.

“It was pretty shocking,” says Tara Upchurch. “It was really hard to process the loss of it.”

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