School Board: Celebs Rumors

Maulik Pancholy, who is gay.The Cumberland Valley School District school board voted 5 to 4 to allow the assembly at Mountain View Middle School in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, to proceed as originally scheduled.Students whose parents object to the presentation’s content will be allowed to opt out of the assembly.Pancholy, nationally known for his role as Jonathan on NBC’s hit TV show 30 Rock, is the author of two award-winning novels for young adults.The Best at It is the story of a gay Indian-American boy and his experience dealing with bullying in a small Midwestern town. Nikhil Out Loud is about a group of eighth-grade theater kids rising up against homophobia in their community.The board canceled the assembly on April 15, citing concerns about Pancholy, who describes himself as an “activist” on his website.

Maulik Pancholy at a local middle school’s anti-bullying assembly due to concerns over his “lifestyle.”The Cumberland Valley School District school board voted unanimously to cancel the gay actor’s scheduled May 22 appearance at Mountain View Middle School in Mechanicsburg, a town of 9,000 people in the state’s center, just 10 miles outside Harrisburg.Pancholy, who played Jonathan on the hit TV show 30 Rock, Sanjay in Weeds, and voiced the character of Baljeet for Disney’s Phineas & Ferb, is also an author of novels for young adults, including The Best at It, the story of a gay Indian-American boy and his experience dealing with bullying in a small Midwestern town, and Nikhil Out Loud, about a group of eighth-grade theater kids rising up against homophobia in their community.The conservative school board balked at the idea that Pancholy might address the middle schoolers and bring up topics like homosexuality or politically-tinged issues, which could violate a district policy prohibiting “political” events.“He labels himself as an activist who is proud of his lifestyle, and I don’t think that should be imposed on our students,” School Board Member Bud Shaffner said at an evening meeting on April 15.Kelly Potteiger, a newly-elected board member who is also a member of the right-wing, anti-LGBTQ group Moms for Liberty, fretted that Pancholy might mention his books, which deal with anti-LGBTQ bullying themes, or his own experience with bullying, potentially even advocating for ideas like “empathy and inclusion” — which right-wingers typically deem as contrary to conservative values.“[I]t’s not discriminating against his lifestyle, that’s his choice, but it’s him speaking about it,” Potteiger sad.

New York’s Tectonic Theater Project and its founding artistic director Moisés Kaufman are speaking out against a recent decision by a Texas high school board to cancel a student production of Tectonic’s widely performed The Laramie Project.

Things are getting icky in Florida! As we’ve been following, Bridget Ziegle

barring a transgender student from playing a male role in his high school’s production of Oklahoma! has reversed course, allowing the original casting decisions to stand.On November 13, the Sherman Independent School District board voted to reinstate the original script and cast for the musical after local community members flooded the board’s regularly scheduled meeting to defend the casting of Max Hightower, a transgender male, as the peddler Ali Hakim.According to Dallas-area ABC affiliate WFAA, more than 60 people spoke in support of Hightower and slammed the board’s decision to prohibit not only Hightower but all students from playing roles that don’t match their assigned sex at birth.Administrators had interceded after several students were cast in cross-gender roles, citing a nonexistent district policy as justification for recasting the musical.Sherman High School administrators also insisted that the musical contained “mature adult themes, profane language, and sexual content,” and the production would have to be postponed for a month while the musical was rewritten to create a more “age-appropriate version.”But local community members weren’t buying the administrators’ explanation, with speaker after speaker denouncing the recasting decision and the decision to rewrite the musical.Speakers criticized the board for caving to perceived political and social pressure to enforce rigid gender roles in school productions.“I’ve played male roles in the past and it was no big deal — and guess what, that’s theater!” one actress told the board.“Reinstate the real version of Oklahoma! and let the students sing!” said another commenter.Following the public comment section of the meeting, the board went into a private,

remove from school library shelves any books with what they consider “inappropriate content,” including those that feature diverse characters or touch on issues of race, identity, gender, or sexuality.They have also sought to punish or terminate teachers who do not acquiesce to their political agenda. Some have even gone so far as to file police reports against school district librarians, alleging that by allowing students to check out certain books, they are peddling “pornography.”Campaigning on the issue of “parental rights,” the group had endorsed dozens of candidates in school board races in 11 different states, intending to oppose what its members see as an infringement on how they are choosing to raise their children and discourage school boards from adopting “woke” concepts or policies.Unfortunately for Moms for Liberty, Tuesday was not nearly as successful as they had hoped.In Virginia, MFL endorsed six candidates for office — four in the exurbs of Loudoun County, one in Prince William County, and one in Southwest Virginia’s Montgomery County.

Last month, the board of the Temecula Valley Unified School District voted to block a social studies textbook whose supplemental resources mention gay civil rights activist and politician Harvey Milk as a historical figure of note, with the president of the conservative-leaning board calling the former San Francisco Supervisor a “pedophile.”The textbook, titled Social Studies Alive, was recommended to be approved for students in first through fifth grades. Although the textbook itself doesn’t mention Milk, the board’s conservative Christian majority – which took power during the 2022 midterms – objected to a supplemental reading package mentioning Milk that accompanies the textbook. Milk, a U.S.

Tensions heated up at a school board meeting in a suburb of Detroit when parents blasted "sexually explicit" books in the school library.  Dearborn Public Schools held a meeting on Thursday to address parents’ concerns over books and curriculum. This meeting came after a tumultuous school board meeting on Monday was cut short due to a crowd of rowdy parents taking issue with how the district decides if a book is appropriate for the school library.

A San Diego mother who went viral this week for her fierce takedown of a local school board for its plans for "family-friendly" Halloween drag show told Fox News Thursday she hopes she's encouraged other parents to protect their children from an increasingly prevalent "hyper-sexualized" culture. In a widely circulated video on social media, Brittany Mayer accused the Encinitas Union School District of acting as "groomers and activist pimps" after it invited community youth and families to a "queer" Halloween party featuring a "family-friendly" drag queen show.  In an interview on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Thursday, Mayer said that the Oct.

Virginia parents with differing viewpoints sounded off on school policies they say harmed children at Tuesday's Loudoun County Public Schools board meeting. One year ago, LCPS passed Policy 8040 to follow Virginia Department of Education guidelines put forth by the previous Democratic administration to protect transgender students.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Get to Tell the County What They Can Read’: Lawmaker Blasts Christian in Viral Video Attacking LGBTQ Library Books“God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what they should not be doing,” the unidentified man can be heard saying. “They invent ways of doing evil.

Escambia County Public Schools, Florida considered a proposal to revise a policy to allow parents to decide what books their children can read. At the beginning of Escambia County schools' "special workshop" on Monday, school board members addressed concerns over books that have been accessible to students.The workshop stemmed from a teacher's claim last month that over 100 books in Escambia County Public Schools violated Florida law.  "I think at some point we have to know that we have professionals working for us that are evaluating, making decisions, based on the literature that is being proposed.

Election Day is less than two months away—but one key race won’t be on most ballots.They’re school board elections, and that’s a big problem for families nationwide. In 37 states, school board elections aren’t held in conjunction with statewide or national elections.This strange system was deliberately created to give special interests an advantage, since voter turnout is much lower at other times of the year.That’s especially concerning at a time when parents are demanding greater control over their kids’ education. For the sake of democracy and accountability, states should move these critical elections to coincide with regular election days.

school district policy prohibiting educators from “us[ing] the classroom to transmit personal beliefs regarding political to sectarian issues.”“In Irving ISD, our campuses are a safe zone for all students,” Irving Independent School District said in the statement issued in response to Stonecipher’s suspension. “To ensure that all students feel safe regardless of background or identity, the district has developed guidelines to ensure that posters, banners and stickers placed in classrooms, hallways or offices are curriculum driven and neutral in viewpoint.”At the time, Stonecipher, an English and journalism teacher who sponsors the school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance, had argued that “safe space” stickers are not inherently political, but simply signal that a teacher feels confident to have conversations with LGBTQ students who may be struggling with their identity or their sense of belonging.She also noted that there was a lot of “hurt, confusion, and ear from students who feel like the administration has a problem with them for being LGBTQ+.”Following Stonecipher’s removal from the classroom, hundreds of MacArthur High School students walked out of class to protest what they saw as discrimination directed against LGBTQ students and staff.

Fox News reports “schools staff members were encouraged to display them as support for the LGBTQ community.”“These flags were shoved down teachers’ throats to put on their desk – that’s not inclusive,” school board President Kenneth Kiler said. “That’s not the way it ought to be.”School board member Tara Battaglia said, “What this does is open up a gateway for other flags to come into our schools that other people will not like.”“We’ve already banned the Confederate flag, and that was done a couple of years ago. … The premise behind the Pride flag was social advocacy … which is political.”Parent Caitlin Edmondson told Fox News the pride flags are “very concerning” and “being forced upon teachers.

EXCLUSIVE: Former Warner Bros Europe executive Josh Berger has been appointed Chair of the Board of Trustees at the UK’s Brit School.

press release from a group of school board candidates opposed to the training called it yet another example of schools disregarding parental rights by instructing teachers to withhold information from parents about “major developments” in their children’s school life.“By indicating that information about your child is ‘knowledge that must be earned,’ [the school district] is setting a dangerous precedent. If identity questions for your child can be hidden from you, is diet, curriculum, healthcare, inappropriate relationships, mental health concerns, etc.

alternative viewpoint” on transgender people. The group, the Minnesota Child Protection League, has been cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center.Protesters have shown up tonight ahead of a Becker school board meeting where the Minnesota Child’s Protection League is speaking.

The Oklahoman newspaper, as a “public service announcement.”Posting under the handle @savagegent77, McGuire said in the video that he was speaking to parents who think it’s “okay for your child to decide if they want to be a girl or a boy or whatever other ridiculous-[expletive] pronoun you can come up with.”“It’s going to be a shock, I understand, there are only two genders,” McGuire said. “Let me repeat, there are only two genders.

A school board in Virginia has, at least temporarily, reversed a decision to ban LGBTQ books from school libraries after widespread condemnation.On Tuesday, Nov. 16, Spotsylvania County School Board voted 5-2 to rescind the decision, which came after parents’ objection to LGBTQ fiction in Riverbend High School’s library app.

Virginia school board members are calling for the burning of “sexually explicit” books, after a Fredericksburg mother objected to LGBTQ fiction in her child’s high school library app.“I think we should throw those books in a fire,” said Rabih Abuismail, a member of the Spotsylvania County, Virginia School Board, at a meeting on Monday, the Free Lance-Star reports.Fellow board member Kirk Twigg added that he wants to “see the books before we burn them, so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”“There are some bad, evil-related material that we have to be careful of and look at,” he said.The call to ban — and potentially burn — books apparently stems from a mother’s discovery that her teenage child could

Rappahannock News.At one point in the thread, Osborne wrote to the user: “The fact that you can look at this and even remotely consider asking that question makes me really wonder about you.”The user replied: “Don’t worry too hard!!! Don’t want you hurting yourself sweetie.”Osborne responded: “The fact that you refer to another man as sweetie answers almost everything I need to know about your first comment,” calling the man a homophobic slur. The thread continued with the two men fighting back and forth, with Osborne calling the man another anti-gay slur.On Tuesday, Osborne apologized for his remarks.

Virginia, Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Vermont, according to local news reports.Evangelical anti-LGBTQ activist and former Trump advisor Franklin Graham this week jumped on the right wing conspiracy theory that wrongly claims the U.S. Dept.

Ethan Shanfeld The Los Angeles Board of Education voted in favor of a vaccine mandate for students aged 12 and older, making Los Angeles Unified School District the nation’s second-largest school district to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.LAUSD students aged 12 and older are required to receive their first vaccine dose by no later than Nov. 21 and their second dose by no later than Dec.

The Simpsons.A recent clip has circulated of school board member Roscoe D. Cooper III addressing the room during a local meeting and reading off a list of names he believes belong to those in attendance.Instead, he unknowingly reads out a list of joke names not dissimilar to those used by Bart Simpson when he prank calls Moe’s Tavern in the popular animated comedy.“Phil McCracken,” Cooper begins, before pausing to see if anybody will respond.

minute-long clip of Chair Cooper reading the list has already more than 663,000 views on YouTube — far and away exceeding their channel’s average view count of just a few hundred.Viewers were quick to point out the video’s similarity to the classic “Simpsons” bit, in which Bart calls Moe’s Tavern asking to speak to patrons with names such as “Mike Rotch” and “Anita Bath.”“The audible question in ‘Phil McKraken?'” said one fan of Chair Cooper’s delivery, “that is Moe level straight man.”“Love to see the younger crowd getting involved in community politics,” said another.“The kids that submitted these names are the future of the US I hope for,” echoed one admirer, presumably referring to young fans of the 31-year-old animated series.

Stripping it down!

was drafted in response to one parent’s complaint about an LGBTQ pride flag that’s been hanging in a middle school classroom for years.District Superintendent Dr. Brad Yates deemed the LGBTQ flag “controversial” in a letter to parents and in a Facebook post last week.

WANE reports. “Then I was able to get back with them and say that we were working to develop a policy is what our plan would be.

Former Disney Channel star Leigh-Allyn Baker is not happy about the mask mandate enforced in her children’s Tennessee school district. A video surfaced on Thursday reportedly showing the "Good Luck Charlie" actress attending the Williamson County Board of Education meeting on Tuesday — and where she went on an anti-mask rant.

Former Disney Channel actress Leigh-Allyn Baker is going viral because of the anti-mask speech she gave at a recent school board meeting in Tennessee.

video surfaced on Thursday reportedly showing the “Good Luck Charlie” actress attending the Williamson County Board of Education meeting on Tuesday — and where she went on an anti-mask rant.“My name is Leigh-Allyn Baker, and I’m a California refugee,” the 49-year-old began her speech. “I gave up everything there: a really successful Hollywood career, television shows.

Good luck anti-vaxxers… Even having a Disney Channel mom on your side isn’t enough to change a school board’s mind! (Thank god.)

Student Rights and Responsibilities document that, for the first time, enumerates essential rights and protections for transgender, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary students, as guaranteed by both the district’s nondiscrimination policy and by state law.The protections for trans students, as spelled out by the revised policy, are rooted in guarantees provided by Regulation 2603, a set of highly-detailed guidelines, adopted last year, which spell out the rights and protections that transgender and gender-expansive students in Fairfax County Public Schools are entitled to when it comes to a host of issues ranging from their use of preferred names and pronouns to updating school transcripts and records to accessing facilities that align

Karen has hulked the f**k out!!

Metro Weekly has previously reported, Grimm was initially allowed to use the boys’ restroom after transitioning, but was later told by the school board he could not after parents and conservative members of the community balked at school’s initial attempt to accommodate Grimm.As a half-measure, the school constructed several single-stall restrooms out of broom closets that could be used by “any” student.