A teacher at Franklin High School in El Paso, Texas, has been placed on paid administrative leave and is facing termination of contract for forcing students to call pedophiles "minor attracted persons" during a lesson.
The city's school district received complaints about the teacher last week and has since conducted an investigation, its spokesperson Liza Rodriguez stated.
"After a thorough investigation was conducted, on September 6, 2022, during a Special Board Meeting, the Board of Trustees approved a decision to notify a Franklin High School teacher of proposed termination," Rodriguez said.
The teacher, who was identified by El Paso Teachers’ Association as Amber Parker, may now appeal the decision. In case she fails – her contract with the school will be terminated.
The investigation started after a 17-second clip, presumably recorded during one of the teacher’s lessons, was leaked online. In the footage, she is heard forbidding the students to use the word pedophile and insisting on using "minor attracted persons" instead.
"You're not allowed to label people like that [as pedophiles]. We're not gonna call them that. We're gonna call them MAPs, minor attracted persons. So don't judge people just because they wanna have sex with a 5-year-old," the teacher is heard saying.
The context of her monologue is not clear from the video and both the school district and the accused teacher refused to offer details.
The school district board’s Vice President Daniel Call said that he was confident at first that the phrases were taken out of context, but underwent a change of heart after studying the case closely.
"When the district's investigation into this situation helped me understand the full story, I have no doubt that terminating this teacher is the right thing to do. Any reasonable person that heard the results of the investigation would vote to terminate her," Daniel Call said.
It is unclear at the moment whether the teacher will be disputing the board's decision.