Last month, we broke the news that Beaverton School District had banned a student teacher from the district after he mentioned gay marriage in a fourth grade class. Well now there’s much better news for gay rights advocates—the teacher, Seth Stambaugh, has been asked back to the class he was kicked out of five weeks ago.
The decision from the district comes after Superintendent Jerry Colonna met with Stambaugh last week to discuss the situation. After their meeting, Colonna sent out an all staff email apologizing for the harm caused by the firing and saying the process surrounding Stambaugh’s dismissal “shows system flaws.”
Dozens of members of the Sexton Mountain elementary school staff signed on to a letter of support for Stambaugh, along with almost 5,000 people who signed a national petition supporting the student teacher.
Update 4:26pm According to Stambaugh’s lawyer Lake Perriguey, Stambaugh found out he was reinstated at a meeting with his administrators this afternoon. Stambaugh was told that it was a unanimous decision between the Beaverton school district and Lewis and Clark college.
“Seth returns to his regularly scheduled classroom time at Sexton Mountain bright and early next Thursday morning,” says Perriguey cheerfully.
So any lessons learned during this ordeal?
“Too many to articulate right now,” says Perriguey. “I suppose a lesson is that there’s a lot of wisdom in young people to stand up to norms that are unfair and that by standing up and offering a different way of doing things they end up educating us all.”
Outstanding news! Kudos to BRO for stepping in and helping to resolve this issue.
Peter Cunningham
Executive Director
Equity Foundation
Book deal in 3… 2… 1…
Thank goodness!
No one else worried for his safety whilst out alone at night now in that town?
In the past, I saw comments from people saying “I wish a teacher would chime in on this.” Well, I am a teacher in Washington County, and Seth saying it was illegal for him to get married is perfectly acceptable. I know teachers who disclose WAY more than that, big deal. So the class was EDUCATED, albeit briefly. Luckily, Seth was reinstated. Now the asshole parents in the class can remove their kids from the class and EDUCATE their future rednecks.
So glad to hear that Seth has his job back, and hopefully something has been gained about discrimination against people who are gay, and how wrong discrimination is.
do elementary students really need to know about gay marriage?i am sure he is a wonderful teacher,but come on?he should have been reprimanded.if he gets fired,here it comes!because i m gay,you are a homophobe,etc.calls the cochran group,out comes the lawyers.i have no problem with this man being gay.i have a problem with students of that age being influenced by his personal socila and political views.the classroom is not the proper forum!
If only being black was something universally hated, but able to be hidden, as being gay is, and people would turn on you the second they knew… the classroom also probably isn’t the proper forum to argue the superiority of a particular religion either, yet I got christian lectures from teachers at my old hick school (Rock Hill High School in Pedro, Ohio). My science teacher gave us a “disclaimer” before going into the bit of our textbooks that dealt with Evolution… my Health teacher showed the whole class a VHS video about abortion, possibly breeding the next generation of doctor killers. Did they not deserve the same reprimanding? 30 years from now Gay Marriage will be as offensive to the general populous as INTERRACIAL marriage…
He could have been like everyone else, gay or straight, by simply stating that he was not married and leaving it at that. If he had used that approach he would not have had to get his job back. He would have already never lost it in the first place. Do you think that a straight man is going to answer “no, I’m not married” and explain why? No. Most kids just want to know that you are married or not and that’s it!
Clay Boggess
http://www.BigEventFundraising.com