Seth Stambaugh: Back to class!
  • Seth Stambaugh: Back to class!
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."