Posted on 07/02/2008 2:26:54 PM PDT by Fitzy_888
GUILDERLAND -- Hundreds of people packed a Guilderland school board meeting Tuesday evening to protest the controversial reassignment of two popular teachers. Dozens of current and former students of Matt Nelligan and Anne Marie McManus spoke against the move even though board members walked out and refused to hear the messages of support in a public forum.
There were howls from the crowd and calls to vote board members out of office after President Richard Weisz referred to the involuntary transfer of the teachers to Farnsworth Middle School as a personnel matter that could not be discussed.
Nelligan and McManus, both members of the social studies department, are facing discipline after the district conducted a "culture climate inquiry" which found they were fostering a "locker room" and "boys club" atmosphere among staff, records show.
Nelligan, an unabashed conservative and 10-year teacher with the district, has been openly critical of district administration and the teachers union. He was also accused and later exonerated of calling a gay member of the social studies department a derogatory term.
Nelligan, visibly overwhelmed that more than 400 people showed up to voice their support, said he was proud his students had taken the lessons of democracy from his classroom.
"They taught everybody here a lesson," he said. "The teachers in the room were the children and the students are the Board of Education."
In an emotional speech that had many in the gathered throng wiping their eyes, McManus, a seven-year teacher in the district, said she was not ready to say goodbye.
Guilderland Superintendent John McGuire said the teachers' actions were "inconsistent" with the departmental policy, but declined to elaborate. He said his administrative team made the decision to break up the department for that reason despite the fact that it posted some of the highest Regents exam scores in the region.
"The measure of our district is not limited to test scores," he said.
Board members did allow community members voice their concerns in the closed forum.
Word of the pending action caused outcry among current and former students, who have formed Facebook and MySpace Web site groups supporting the teachers. Two of the groups had more than 400 members.
Helai Hesham, a 2004 Guilderland graduate from Afghanistan, told the packed room that she was bullied into silence by classmates in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks until she met the social studies teachers.
She said their classroom discussions encouraged her to be confident in her beliefs and not scared of the response.
"These teachers showed me it was possible to be a proud American while still challenging the policy and ideals I saw around me," Hesham said.
McKenzie Borque, who will be Guilderland senior in the fall, said she is considering studying political science in college because of the teachers.
"If they're not at the high school,"' she said, "I don't want to be either."
The teachers union is directly funding the election of the board members, and of course, the union is otherwise vested in liberal indoctrination.
Bringing shame upon arrogance secures my (our) freedom.
Our own school district dumped three of nine school board members and convinced two more not to run for re-election over the botched firing of a popular high school football coach. It was actually easier than I thought it would be.
Since when is being a social conservative a bad thing? I’ve thought for a long time that we need to break the back of teachers unions. Homeschooling works but the best thing is for communities to refuse to hire union teachers. That requires electing school boards willing to fight the much needed fight.
Homeschooling is good for the students but a lot good it does only to lose that right because of powerful unions fighting to lock out parents from teaching their children.
I do hold out hope. I had the pleasure to meet with a wonderful conservative (freeper) school teacher who works in an LA school district while vacationing in CA. We need to support our own when and where we find them. Also conservatives need to offer scholarships and alternatives to the NEA. We need to present alternatives because the left will always have an edge as long as they are in charge of “educating” most of the children in the country. It is only that they are so horribly bad at doing that which has saved us from total social liberalization.
I wish I had teachers like this in high school. All mine were lefties.
From the town’s name I thought this was in the Netherlands.
I'd guess since November 1932.
EDUCATION INTREP
Behold how intolerant the left is. They harass any normal person who opposes their agenda.
Unless McManus is a man named "Anne Marie," the "boys' club" charge seems deeply bogus. I deduce that both teachers made "insensitive" jokes about gays.
NYC was "New Amsterdam" for instance.
Lots of places still have Dutch names. For instance, "kill" in Dutch means creek or stream, as in the Catskills, Peekskill, etc.
Not to mention the literary references. Take a look at the names of characters and places in the upstate NY based "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".
The name is stll a bit odd, as "Guilder" is the old term for Dutch money, so the name translates as "Dollar Land".
Why are folks who claim to be gay so unhappy?
I’d be unhappy if I couldn’t have a normal relationship with a member of the opposite sex! Fortunately ...
“culture climate inquiry”
A type of inquisition, apparently.
The “People's Re-education Camp Committee” will not come to order!
Uh oh!
Some government school defender on the board will “feel” **personally** insulted. ( You can be certain they will cry like little girls to the thread administrator.)
:)
“I deduce that both teachers made “insensitive” jokes about gays.”
They investigated that and determined it was unfounded. Of coarse, that doesn’t mean the acusation goes away -this is a great part of the injustice here.
Thanks, I missed that. Not that it would bother me if they had.
This announcement popped up on the website today:
Please note that there will be a special meeting of the Guilderland Board of Education on Monday, July 7, 2008 in the Guilderland High School Principal's Conference Room beginning at 6 p.m. The purpose of the meeting is a personnel issue, probable Executive Session pending Board action. [italics in orginal]
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