The art teacher says she was fired because of the LGBTQ art her students made.
A middle school teacher in Florida says she was fired in March because she talked to her students about sexuality.
Casey Scott, an art teacher in her first year, said that students asking her about her sexuality were the first thing that led to her being fired.
In the video above, you can see how the QLD school is being criticized for its anti-gay teachers contract.
Scott, who is married to a man, told her students on Tuesday that she is pansexual, which means she likes people of both sexes.
She said that after that, LGBTQ students asked if they could make art that showed their own sexuality and identity, and she hung it on the door of her classroom.
Scott said that the school told her to take down the art. She said she was then sent home and told over the phone that she was fired.
“We talked about it in class, and now I’m fired because of it,” Scott told WBBH-TV.
The Lee County School District told NBC News that Scott was fired because she “did not follow the state-mandated curriculum.”
NBC’s affiliate says that the district also shared complaints from parents who were worried about the talk and the art.
Scott was fired at a time when people all over the country are talking about whether or not LGBTQ issues or identities should be talked about at school.
This year, a new law in Florida, which critics have called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, sparked the discussionștii.
The Parental Rights in Education bill says that teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity “in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a way that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students” is against the law.
Late in March, a few days after Scott was fired, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law. The law will start to work in July.
Proponents of the measure say that it gives parents more control over what their children learn in school and that LGBTQ issues are “not age-appropriate” for young students.
Kevin Daly, who is going to be the next president of the Teachers Association of Lee County, told WBBH-TV that the new bill could cause problems for teachers and that he thought it was the reason Scott lost his job.
“There’s a lot of talk about where the line is,” he said. And what should the employees do? Or are allowed to do, when the subject comes up,” he said.
Before the new law was passed, LGBTQ teachers in Florida told NBC News that they were afraid to talk more about their families or LGBTQ issues.
The Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank that has been keeping an eye on the bills, says that 19 other states have also introduced similar bills this year. These bills would limit how teachers can talk about or teach about LGBTQ issues in school.
