Progressive Florida Teacher Tries to Create a Fake Racist Controversy to Besmirch Ron DeSantis – Opinion

Here’s an interesting one for you. After being accused of engaging in racist behavior on behalf of another teacher from Escambia, Florida, this teacher resigned. This story is being used by progressives to make a very dubious attack against the Stop WOKE Act. It prohibits far-leftist ideas about race being taught in K-12 schools.

It Pensacola News JournalReports state that Michael James, teacher, sent an email asking Gov. Ron DeSantis and Escambia County Superintendent Tim Smith claiming that a district employee “removed pictures of historic Black American heroes from his classroom walls, citing the images as being ‘age inappropriate.’”

James posted images in his class of famous black Americans, including Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman Colin Powell and Martin Luther King Jr. The other employee was alleged to have taken issue with these images.

This report contains:

James chose the board’s theme because the majority of the students and the residents in the neighborhoods that surround O.J. Semmes, who are Black, wanted to inspire his students and show them how to be like him.

James (61), from Daphne in Alabama sent Monday’s letter to Governor. Officially, he resigned as O.J.’s outstanding student education teacher. Semmes Elementary School Tuesday morning.

The school district released a statement in which it acknowledged the incident and explained that an investigation would be conducted.

The teacher – who happens to be white – said he could not work for a school that would support this type of behavior. “I hate to say this about everybody in the staff or the leadership there, but something is not right,” he said. “Something needs to be changed or fixed.”

James shared that Monday’s behavior analyst district worker entered James’ classroom to help with its setup.

“That is kind of unusual, but that’s OK,” James thought. “They came in, and we started moving tables around and swapping some out, and I had made the bulletin board a couple of days earlier.”

A number of images of historic black people were included on the bulletin board, as was the Pledge of Allegiance. Short blurbs were included for each picture to explain their achievements.

“I was sitting down in one of the children’s chairs cutting something out, and I turned around and saw her start taking something off the bulletin board,” the teacher recounted.

James said when he asked the behavioral analyst what she was doing, she “said something along the lines of it wasn’t age appropriate. Something like that.”

Democrats spun this story to show how the Stop WOKE Act was RAAAYCISSS. Charlie Crist, who is running to challenge DeSantis for governor, issued a statement blaming “culture wars” for bringing politics into the state’s public schools.

“This is the sad reality of Ron DeSantis’s Florida — a teacher, in a predominantly Black community, comes into their classroom to see posters of historically Black American heroes, including President Obama, taken down for being ‘inappropriate’,” he bloviated.

“DeSantis’s culture wars are infiltrating every corner of our state, and it’s Florida’s students who are paying the price.”

Twitter also had a similar announcement.

However, it seems there may be more. A statement was issued by the district refuting his allegations. Another Pensacola News Journal report explained:

According to the school district’s statement, two district employees came to James’ classroom to assist him in getting his room set up for the first day of school. The one of the employees who came to James’ classroom was certified as a behavior analyst, while the other was certified as a coach.

“Mr. James’s teaching assignment for 2022-2023 was to be a very small unit (4-6 students) of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) students,” the statement read.

“Mr. James’s room was, at that point, set up in a more ‘traditional’ classroom configuration, with rows of desks facing the front of the room, which is a wholly inappropriate use of space for a group of students like the ones he was assigned,” according to the statement.

The behavior analyst and coach “engaged” James in “reconfiguring the room and making it more academically sound for his teaching assignment,” according to the district.

The statement continued: “The behavior analyst told James that the bulletin board directly behind his teaching area had to be dedicated to state-required curricular materials that he would require to teach his specific students, according to the district.”

The district also explained that because James was going to be teaching special needs children, “it is critical the instructional materials be within their line of sight during instruction, for the purposes of student focus and retention.”

“The Behavior Analyst observed his bulletin board was ‘Awesome,’ because of the history tied to it, but the language and reading levels on the posters were too complex for this particular group of students,” the statement continued.

It appears as though James misinterpreted – intentionally or unintentionally – the reasons for removing the material. He could easily have had a discussion with the district leaders to clarify this, suggesting that this may have been an elaborate stunt. This isn’t the first time that he made controversial remarks, according to the report. In his bid to be Sylacauga’s mayor, Alabama, he demanded the hanging public of drug-dealers who had previously run for office.

It appears that the stunt was just a publicity stunt. This is evident in the fact that he decided to resign and email the governor rather than first discussing it with the district. It is not surprising that stories like these are popping up in light of the growing furore over Stop WOKE Act.

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