A principal in Florida quit after showing the statue of the biblical figure David by Michelangelo to students at a Christian charter school in Tallahassee. At least one parent said that the children had been exposed to pornography, so the principal quit.
Hope Carrasquilla resigned as principal of the Tallahassee Classical school on Monday. The school’s governing board told her she had to resign or be fired after parents complained about showing a famous 16th-century sculpture to sixth-graders. The sculpture is one of the most famous works of art from the Renaissance.
Even though Carrasquilla’s decision to resign had nothing to do with the bill, her decision was seen as far-right. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, wants to change a law that says public schools can’t teach about sex education or gender identity. This law is part of a larger conservative movement that supports so-called “parents’ rights.” These so-called “rights” are supposed to give parents more say in their children’s education, but critics say they are really just a way to push a right-wing agenda in schools.
The Tallahassee Democrat said that one parent of a student at the school said that the picture of Michelangelo’s David was “pornographic.” Carrasquilla told HuffPost that when students are going to see “potentially controversial” classical art, the school usually sends a letter to the parents to let them know. But because of a “series of misunderstandings,” the letter did not get to the parents of the sixth-graders before they saw the David sculpture.
Carrasquilla told the outlet that one parent “thought her child shouldn’t be seeing those pieces” and was “very upset” about it.
Hillsdale College is a private, conservative Christian school in Michigan that is linked to Tallahassee Classical School. The school’s website says that it wants to “train the minds and improve the hearts of young people through a content-rich classical education in the liberal arts and sciences, with instruction in the principles of moral character and civic virtue.”
In an interview with Slate, Barney Bishop III, the head of the board at Tallahassee Classical school, said that the problem wasn’t that Renaissance art was shown to students, but that parents weren’t told ahead of time. The Washington Post said that the lesson plan with the statue of David also had pictures of the naked people in Michelangelo’s fresco The Creation of Adam and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.
Bishop said, “We have a plan.” “Last year, the school told everyone ahead of time. Parents should know that their kids will see, hear, or talk about this in class. We didn’t send out that notice this year.”
He also said, “This year, we made a huge mistake.” That notice wasn’t sent by us. Let’s be clear: we’re not a public school. We work for the public. Parents didn’t want their kids to learn the nonsense that was being taught in public schools during the Covid-19 pandemic because they saw it for themselves.
“Parents’ rights are more important than kids’ rights.”
As part of his “culture war” against BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities, DeSantis said last month that he wants to stop diversity, equity, and inclusion programmes and critical race theory classes from being taught in state colleges.
The news comes after the governor banned all talks about sexuality and gender identity in public schools and AP classes for African-American students in January.
