NewsxEventsxDirectoryxCalendarxPersonal Websites of GLBT OklahomansxAIDS & Health InfoxSearchxMessage BoardxAdvertise
Joe Quigley - Back to NW Classen


Get on the list & get in the know!
Enter your email address here to join GayOKC.com's
mailing list!

What do you think?
CLICK HERE
to post your opinion on GayOKC.com's Message Board!

 x

The following is an email from Joe Quigley received Mon, Aug 12.
(Posted 8-13-02)

Principal demands I violate the Oklahoma State Standards for the Performance and Conduct of Teacher.

There is good news/bad news.
Good news:
As of 1:00 pm 08/12/02 the Plaque "GIFT OF GAY AND LESBIAN ALUMNI OF OKLAHOMA PUBLIC SCHOOLS" is back on the bulletin board. I used screws with a drill supplied by Ed Kromer and Paul Bashline (thanks. I will return it--honest). I have been advised by another teacher to also get a type of glue (he gave me the name) that would be strong enough to keep integrity stuck on the School District. So you know it has to be strong to do that.
Unless the mystery person strikes, the plaque will be there when the students report tomorrow, and that will be quite a thing for our GLBT students, and for their heterosexual peers.

Now the bad (actually, assinine) news.
Teachers reported to school last thursday (08/08/02) and on friday morning there was a letter in my mailbox requesting I meet with the principal on monday, today.
I hadn't done anything, so it could not be a disciplinary thing. I agreed to meet, but rquested to be informed of the subject matter so I could be prepared. Plus, I did not want him to control my weekend by having, or attempting to have me worry.

This is the long and short of it.
He forbade me to put anything in my room that is identifiably Gay whether it is a poster, or any information that might point out something or someone is Gay (a character, writer, whatever). I have been forbidden to "ADVOCATE".
Because I am open, he told me I have become a charicature, unlike the (more well behaving) Gay teachers who are not known to be Gay, some teachers, after all don't like it, and some kids laugh at me because I am gay.
If GLBT students want affirming and positive information, they could go to places off campus (unlike the straight kids who get information on campus).
He denied that we give advantage to Straight kids, and countered my pointing out that we have school activities that "promote the heterosexual model". After all, a gay male could always be Homecoming King, and a Lesbian could be the queen. But he just didn't get it. To be such, they have to appear heterosexual. I suggested that instead of being directed to choose a male and female for candidates, the students, instead, be told to pick a student for each. If the majority chooses a heterosexual model, that is their choice, a choice eliminated by the very directions for nominations.
But he explained it was done that way because that is just how IT IS---Male and Female.
I tried to explain that as he was heterosexual he takes things for granted whereas the GLBT students are denied information and role models that he doesn't need but they do.
He denied that we continually celebrate heterosexuality while closeting GLBT information. (If a straight man has successfully impregnated a female teacher we have a party and give gifts. If I put up a Gay positive poster, the poster comes down, or mysteriously disappears and I get reprimanded).
He pointed out that the formation of a GSA last year sort of fizzled out as proof that GLBT kids do not agree that they have needs, but I had to point out that GLBT kids might be a little reluctant to be open in the atmosphere that is present at NWKlassen.
A student's fear to speak with me because I am open is proof to him that they reject me and my "cause", although I tried to explain that for a GLBT student to be afraid of guilt by association is syntomatic of the problem. Why should that fear be there?

So to summarize, lest I go on forever,
I can not ADVOCATE which consists of mentioning someone in the book is Gay or the poem was written to a same sex interest (although I can tell them about Elizabeth browning and her husband Robert, teach Romeo and Juliet, and deal with any number of heterosexual love poems or stories)
I can have nothing in my room that is specifically Gay, and I cannot point out anyone in the curriculum who is.
(Everyone apparently must be assumed heterosexual)
If GLBT Kids want any positive or affirming information they must go off campus to get it.
I have to appear to be heterosexual, while the kids must be satisfied with the little crumbs they can have if they want to participate. (oh, and in one of those annoying non-sequitors he compared the "divisiveness" of my Advocacy to bringing pro-life and pro-choice debates into the classroom. HUH?)

The Sate Standards for the Conduct and Performance of Teachers states:
"The teacher shall not on the basis of.....sexual orientation grant any advantage to any student"
If we have so many heterosexually directed programs, if heterosexual students can get affirming information on campus while the GLBT students MUST go off campus, and if only ONE teacher out of 86 is the only one that makes this affirming information available (without it being mandatory)and he is silenced, It would appear that the straight students have an advantage because of their sexual orientation, and the principal, in forbidding the things he has, is holding me to also give this advantage under what was clearly a threat to employment ( threatened that if I were to "advocate" or make affirming information available, he would follow the progressive discipline that terminates with my termination)
So, clearly I have been threatened with loss of job if I follow the state standards. The thing is the State not the city certifies me, and I can lose my certification if I knowingly violate those standards of conduct and performance as I am being directed to do.
I REALLY think it is time for someone to step in here and address this. To help out legally.
I have contacted the State Department of Education, but I am a peon and they are not too quick getting back. So, starting tomorrow I will go to the state office right after school and sit there until someone talks to me. They close at 4:30, so with travelling time I will be there for at least 90 minutes. Hopefully it won't take too long, but I have a few books I want to read, and if it takes a few days, I will get my reading done (I have been working on a biography of Abraham Lincoln, off and on, for about two years now as I only read it on planes or busses. So Ole Abe might have to die before I get to actually speak to someone.)

Joe Quigley

Previous postings from Joe Quigley:

 

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO FRONT PAGE

 

GayOKC.com COPYRIGHT © 1998 - 2002 ROBERT D. ABIERA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (NO, THIS IS NOT JOE QUIGLEY'S PERSONAL WEBSITE!)

Click Here!