Georgia has a lot of small towns and, like most towns, large and small, good, honest people make up most of the population. But in Dublin, Georgia, a small town of around 16.000 people in the central part of the state, an incident occurred that everyone is wishing people would just pretend never happened.
The teacher, Nancy Price Perry teaches at the Dublin Middle School, located about halfway between Macon and Savannah. Her husband Bill Perry happens to be on the local school board and, at one time, had a local “news” show where he inundated the airways with talk about the perils of gay marriage and religion, at least his views of religion.
You will understand why we mention the husband in just a minute. But we go back to around the 23rd of March and Mrs. Perry teaching a class of 13-14-year-old students. While speaking to the class, Perry allegedly began disparaging President Obama, going so far as to say the president was lying about being a Christian. Then, to add a little more fuel to the fire, she told the students that if their parents voted for Obama, then they were not Christians either.
Being on a roll, Perry challenged her students to prove their Christianity, according to reports. Needless to say, she didn’t seem to be worried about what she said getting back to the parents. And it did. One 13-year-old went home and told his mom and dad what the teacher had said. Her father asked for an immediate conference with the teacher.
The request for a conference was not granted until several days had passed and, when the meeting was held, besides the parents and the teacher there was a school representative and Bill Perry. In a show of intimidation, Bill Perry interjected himself into the conversation. As it turns out, no apology was forthcoming on the teacher’s part for inserting her personal religious and political convictions into the classroom discussion.
The NAACP wrote a letter to the Courier-Herald of Dublin, saying what happened at the meeting:
“The parents were expecting that the teacher would hear their concerns, acknowledge the inappropriateness of her behavior in the classroom setting and show remorse for her conduct. She did none of the above. Instead, she presented to the parents a packet of several pages from a website that expressed her views on religion and politics. She was supported in this by her husband.”
The unnamed parent wrote a letter to the school board, outlining the teacher’s behavior and the school’s response, as well as his dissatisfaction regarding what was done to rectify the situation. In the letter, the father said the teacher should not “[call] into question the Christianity of anyone who does not think as she does.” He said the school board needs to take whatever actions are needed to “[discourage] any similar incident in the future.”
Read the “Letter to the Editor” on Facebook.
The Huffington Post is suggesting that this story is probably more telling of the mindset of the many people behind the Religious Freedom Restoration Act proposals and law than any we have heard about to date, and they may be right. Regardless of anyone’s personal convictions or political leanings, we all know that there is a well-defined line in our public schools separating church and state.
In the case of the Dublin school teacher, nothing has been done, and the reasons are quite obvious. The Reverend Richard Sheffield is the Dublin City Board of Education Chairman. Any disciplinary actions taken against a teacher are the responsibility of the principal and ultimately the superintendent.
Added to the deception by the school board is what a Dublin resident told the local newspaper: ” I was told last night by someone in the school system that nothing will be done because of WHO the teacher is and her husband being on the board! Just like the paper omitted her name and his name, small town bullshit!”
The school board really wants this story to die down and be swept under the rug, so to speak, but the incident does bring up a very serious question: If we have laws that expressly forbid bringing religion into the classroom, how is it that a teacher can get by with not only disparaging another person, regardless of that person’s status, and even more important, have the audacity to tell any child to prove they are a Christian? Did the teacher mean to say that an Atheist, Muslim or Jewish student was not welcome in the Dublin Middle School?
