Good news, bad news.
Math teacher, Mr. Nalley.
Chance Nalley is a math teacher at Columbia Secondary in NY. Mr. Nalley is gay and will soon have a marriage ceremony with his partner, even though New York state does not recognize same-sex marrigages.
Columbia Secondary has a mission statement that includes a commitment to diversity.
With his principal’s support, Mr. Nalley, who started at the school when it opened in 2007, felt comfortable coming out to students during a diversity workshop that fall.
“A lot of the students were shocked at the time,” said the principal, Jose Maldonado-Rivera, “shocked that he said it, and shocked that it was true. For many students, it was a huge eye-opener — it was the last thing they would have thought about Chance.”
Since he is out to his students, many expressed a desire to attend the wedding ceremony.
He is expecting about two-thirds of the school’s 96 seventh graders at the ceremony, on April 4 at St. Paul’s Chapel on Columbia University’s campus (he had to hire an extra security guard because so many children were coming). Four seventh graders, approached at random on Friday, said they planned to be there.
Meanwhile, Debra Taylor was fired from her teaching job at Grandfield High School in rural Oklahoma after showing the 2002 film, The Laramie Project. The film tells the story of the brutal hate-based murder of Matthew Shepard. The students in Taylor’s class wanted to do a performance of scenes from the film, which draws attention to the victims of gay bashing.
From USA Today:
“They don’t want something like this addressed in our community,” says senior Matt Ebner, one of Taylor’s former students.
The Norman, Okla., chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) urged administrators to allow The Laramie Project as a way “to create a culture where everyone is welcomed, embraced and valued.”
