BERND TO WAIT FOR ALL THE FACTS
THE SUPERINTENDENT IS UNDER PRESSURE OVER CONTROVERSIES CONCERNING A
STUDENT PLAY AND SCHOOL NEWSPAPER.
Friday, May 15, 1998
ARLINGTON - Despite public pressures over a controversial Martin High School play and newspaper, Superintendent Mac Bernd said during last night's school board meeting that he would take no further action toward personnel until all facts have been established.
"The only thing I can do as your superintendent is listen to all these opinions but make decisions about personnel only in accordance with board policy and the law," Bernd said.
The play, a student-edited version of Alan Ball's three-act play, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress , is about bridesmaids discussing life after a Tennessee wedding.
The student version, which was to be performed this week before students in a drama class before students and invited parents, includes profane language, dramatizations of marijuana and cocaine use and conversations about casual sex and oral sex, and required one character to bare her breasts.
The goodbye issue of the school newspaper, The Warrior Post , contained senior columns and staff articles that referred to alcohol use, heterosexual and homosexual activity and contained derogatory references to local ministers.
Bernd found both "totally inappropriate" for high school use. He and Martin High School Principal Steve Jacoby determined the play would not be performed or used in a theater class in any way.
The newspaper sponsor, Robbie Griffin, was placed on administrative leave with pay on Tuesday, pending the completion of an investigation by Jacoby. The drama teacher, Karen Baker, was not placed on leave while Jacoby investigates the circumstances around the play.
Bernd said last night he had received pressure ranging from some who said students should be allowed to print anything to others supporting heavy censorship.
And Bernd was also mailed a letter yesterday by one of the ministers referred to in a recent edition of The Warrior Post , the Rev. Barry Cameron, senior pastor of Arlington Christian Church. Cameron called for action against the drama teacher, Karen Baker.
"If the sponsor of The Warrior Post is severely reprimanded and possibly terminated for the final edition of her paper, you cannot and must not allow Ms. Baker to receive a different treatment, when the contents of the material being used in her class is far more unconscionable, immoral and completely inappropriate for use in the public school," Cameron wrote in the letter dated May 14.
But Bernd said last night that it is important to remember that employees are accorded protections under state law and board policy. Administrators must guarantee that any action taken will be fair after they've determined the facts and why they occurred.
Jacoby and Bernd both said no further action was taken yesterday toward either teachers or the students on the newspaper staff.
The May 11 edition of The Warrior Post also contained several statements asking ministers to "leave us alone." Cameron said this is a reference to his and the Rev. Dwight McKissic's complaints about an article that ran in the Nov. 17 issue of The Warrior Post that profiled the Teen Project, which provides counseling for teen-agers struggling with homosexual feelings.
Cameron and McKissic complained that no balancing view that encouraged rejection of homosexuality was offered.
But a counselor for the Teen Project Hotline, Kathy Smyth LaMorte, spoke to the board last night and said the hot line "is for all teens. We do not endorse any particular lifestyle. Period."
Lamort said the Teen Project exists solely to give teens a chance to get questions answered and to understand their self image.
But in an interview after the meeting, McKissic questioned the true motives of the Teen Project, saying a group counseling session he attended was led by a lesbian and the project is sponsored by the Tarrant County Lesbian/Gay Alliance.
McKissic also questioned whether an agreement signed by Bernd, Cameron and him on April 20 had its intended effect. In the statement, the three stated they agreed on several principles, including:
*"It is unfortunate that an unintended - but real - impression of the article could have been that the Teen Project was the white knight set against uninformed and uncaring parents, pastors and even teachers who disagreed with Teen Project over the nature of human sexual orientation."
*"People of goodwill, intelligence and total dedication to the welfare of children may have felt the article was not balanced according to the journalistic standards taught in the Martin High School journalism classes and encroaches on AISD policies which mandate student publications be neutral when dealing with controversial political issues."
McKissic said it is his understanding that the agreement would be disseminated to the Martin faculty and students. Instead, he said, "It was intended to quiet us down."
McKissic said if the agreement had been circulated, Martin students might not have acted with retribution in the last issue of The Warrior Post .
"If they had handled the first problem right, they wouldn't have had the second problem," McKissic said.
Bernd said the purpose of the document was to make explicit "an understanding between the three of us."
He added, "The students' actions were irresponsible enough that I don't think any kind of circulated document would have stopped them.