The Parents Are Not Alright
You Don't Say?
Sorry for the break in posting! I have been hard at work on a collaborative project with an upcoming deadline (which I hope to post here). As always, thanks for stopping by, please recommend and…
Two days ago, everyone with a kid in my children’s school district received an email from the District Superintendent. This email read differently because it wasn’t generally informational—it was one of those emails that felt specifically for someone, with that someone not identified. And let me tell you, this message was strongly worded.
From what I can gather, here’s the situation: a new teacher at my children’s high school is gay. For context, my kids’ district is very conservative at the parental level. This is not something that bothers us, and maybe there’s another post in me somewhere explaining why this has worked out for us just fine.
But here’s where things get dicey—the teacher, by all accounts, is not openly gay (why would it be anybody’s business?), but was discovered to be so. How? Apparently, some students did some online sleuthing (like they do), leading them to a fully accessible social media account that included photos of the teacher, sometimes with another man, that run up against the border of crossing over from “steamy” into something else. The account has since been made private.
What follows is largely predicatable, but serves as a good reminder of the speed of our online world: news of the photos spread like wildfire among the students, who, acccording to my children (see my post The Kids Are Alright) simply think it’s funny. Largely, they don’t care one bit that the teacher might be gay; they simply find the aesthetics of the photos amusing. There is no “Oh my goodness! We have a gay teacher!” as this is already a perfectly normal reality in their worldview.
Then a parent is shown the website (*cue sound of rumbling thunder*). As you might expect, this is where the wheels fly off the wagon.
The email then makes full sense. There are accusations of “grooming,” inappropriate behavior with students, and on and on. The Superintendent’s email refutes all of this, at length, as the material was discovered by students searching on their own (note: I think you have to know to make such an account private, but I also remember the world before social media). The message goes on to say that teachers have a right to their own lives, etc, as long as it does not affect their job performance negatively. All true.
When I picked up my kids on the day the email was sent, I noticed that there were police cars positioned at the building’s front and back. This was irregular, but the police often randomly search the school for drugs (using dogs).
But then yesterday? Someone called in a bomb threat.
I start getting texts from my kids, as the high school has been evacuated and there’s definitely some panic. As I’m about to get in my car and race to get them, another email and text arrive (again, the Superintendent), telling parents not to come, which will simply jam up traffic in the area and make things worse. Sigh. So I wait. Wait some more, texting with the kids, until finally the “all clear” is given.
What was I doing at the time my childrens’ texts arrived—working on the text portion a muti-media poem about gun violence and schools, which will be perfomed in October, so of course I’m primed to be extra rattled. I’ve also read Dave Cullen’s incredible book Columbine, which explains how the original plan was to set off a bomb in the school and then shoot students as they evacuated. The bomb didn’t work.
But, like many (if not most) parents, you dread the situation where your kids are scared at school and you are not present. You can’t do anything. We see this play out tragically, over and over. This is a world that adults have created; it has not happened by accident. There are no laws, only lawmakers, and they’ve done zero to protect any of us against the militarization of every person and public space. People have now, more than once, been shot and killed for simply knocking on someone’s door. I will use a sick irony to say the following: the most bullet-proof defense in America is to be white and scared. If you are the first, and say you’re the second, you have license to do whatever you want without repercussion. This is undeniable.
We don’t know yet who is behind the bomb threat, but the rumor is that it’s a parent. This has been my gut feeling all along, yet I, for reasons I can’t articulate, hope I’m wrong. Though, deep down, I doubt it. A parent, or parents, call the school to complain, a very sternly worded email arrives soon after (coinciding with a police presence at the school), and then the next day a bomb threat is called in.
The adults are not alright.