An elementary school teacher in Efland, North Carolina, has resigned from his job after parents protested when they learned that he read to his students a gay fable about a prince who married another gay prince.
Omar Currie, 25, a third grade teacher at Efland-Cheeks Elementary School, and Vice Principal Meg Goodhand resigned from their jobs due to the incident, which happened last April.
Currie told North Carolina Public Radio in an interview that one day in April, he dropped off his students for P.E. class.
When he came back, he saw two students who were upset and crying because they were bullied.
The male student told Currie that some students had referred to him as gay which, he said, hurt his feelings.
"He also said they kept telling him, 'Hey girl, come here. Hey woman, throw me the ball'—really using some words to effeminise him," he said.
The female student who defended the male student also got the ire of the bullies.
The teacher then thought of reading to his class the book "King & King" authored by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland to tackle the situation.
The school's media centre did not have a copy but he was told that Goodhand did.
"It just seemed natural that I would address the issue that the student was being bullied about," he said. "There has been lots of criticism by parents that ask why I didn't read a book directly related to bullying. When we're trying to address bullying, we're trying to attack that root cause of that behaviour."
That night, Currie got a call from a school administrator about a complaint from one parent. The administrator told him that permission from the parents should have been sought before he read the book.
In a meeting, some parents objected to what he did but others supported him.
"My most vocal critics have been those individuals outside of the classroom," said Currie. "I think it's really just because they didn't have a relationship with me and all of a sudden, the conversation shifted about my decision to read this book about bullying and all of a sudden my sexuality is brought into it. There's this idea that I'm trying to push some type of agenda."
One father even carried a sign outside the school to protest Currie's reading the book to the students.
"I felt like there was no one in the district trying to protect me in this situation," Currie said.
Currie said he decided to resign not because of the parents but because of the school district's response.
"It just became very apparent that the district was not going to foster an inclusive environment for me to work. I believe more than anyone else parents have rights, but I don't think the rights of parents should ever infringe on our abilities to keep students safe," he said.
School Principal Kiley Brown convened the school's media review committee about the book. The committee later decided to allow "King & King" to be used in the school.
Two more complaints were received by the school, but the committee upheld its earlier decision to allow the use of the book.
The committee reports were appealed to the Superintendent's Office, which appointed a district review committee.
A book challenge meeting was supposed to be held last June 18 but was cancelled after the two appeals were withdrawn.
