[AGL] Kulture Thrives in Dallass

[Wayne Johnson]

Yet another reason....in a growing and lengthy list of reasons.... to fear 
for the long-term "edukashun" of Texas children.

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Art teacher, school spar after complaints about nude artwork
FRISCO, Texas (AP) -- Like the artwork that teacher Sydney McGee insists she 
was fired for letting her students study, her former school says there's 
more to her dismissal than is apparent at first glimpse.

McGee, who taught elementary school in this sprawling Dallas suburb, has 
drawn national sympathy and disbelief since claiming she was let go last 
month because a parent complained that their child saw a nude piece during a 
field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art.

Eighty-nine of McGee's fifth-graders toured the museum during the April 
trip, which McGee concedes likely included nudes but was arranged as a 
chance to see Picassos and Piet Mondrians.

"It's not a place of pornography, it's art," said McGee, 51, who has taught 
for 28 years and lists Oxford University among her graduate studies.

Her dismissal has stirred up familiar stereotypes of Texas conservatism run 
amok and the intemperate prudishness of suburban life.

The Frisco school board suspended McGee, with pay, on September 22 for the 
remainder of the school year and the superintendent has said he will 
recommend that her contract not be renewed. District officials have 
vigilantly maintained that the decision stemmed from separate personnel 
issues and not one child's exposure to a nude artwork, which has never been 
identified.

But as public attention has intensified, school officials are trying to 
defend their decision in a back-and-forth they say puts them in "an extreme 
disadvantage ... due to issues of employee privacy and ethical 
considerations."

On the school district's Web site last week, administrators posted that "we 
have tried very hard to take the high road" and said they asked McGee for 
permission to make her personnel files public. In a memo to McGee dated 
almost three weeks after the field trip, Fisher principal Nancy Lawson lists 
performance concerns that include not updating lesson plans and wearing 
flip-flops to work.

McGee's attorney, Rogge Dunn, said he would approve the disclosure if the 
district superintendent and McGee's former principal also disclose their 
personnel files.

Dunn said he is reviewing what legal options McGee might have. He downplayed 
news this week that McGee accepted a buyout of nearly $8,300 at her last 
teaching position in nearby McKinney, saying the documents, which include 
parents' complaints about her teaching, don't reveal the reason for the 
buyout.

"That doesn't mean you're bad at your job," Dunn said. "This doesn't change 
anything."

McGee said she arranged the field trip with Lawson's encouragement and 
toured the museum twice before taking her students. She said she decided 
against having the class examine a Mayan exhibit because its virgin 
sacrifices and bloodletting scenes were too "esoteric" for the students.

"We have a lot of sporting things in Frisco, with the soccer and the 
baseball," McGee said. "But not a lot of those kids go to the museum."

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