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Refusing to comment on personnel matters is standard procedure, and in fact school boards always go into closed session when discussing personnel matters. And, removing a principal in the middle of a school year is a big deal, and is not usually done lightly. So, I find it quite credible that there were other underlying problems, and that this was simply the last straw.
I guess it is good to know that journalists in the UK are as stupid as journalists in the USA.
It's worse: a lot of journalists outside America but inside American cultural hegemony basically aspire to be as bad as America's journalists.
And they are often worse, because their audience is less informed, so the journalists can be more misleading.
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It's not directly related to the law but I don't think this would have been a fireable offense if there wasn't an ongoing culture war about parental rights. I agree that like most cancellations there was probably underlying conflict and this was the last straw/politically acceptable pretext, but this incident couldn't serve that function if it weren't for the ongoing culture war. And the Board Chair leans into it, he could just stonewall the interviewer and put out a bunch of buzzword speech about doing what's in the best interest of students but he starts talking about how this is Florida and they're going to defend parental rights unlike Virginia. He also starts speculating about how they're definitely not going to show David to kindergartners when the incident in question was sixth graders which is weird. He comes across as a guy who has the education culture war on his mind.
It would depend on a lot f things.
First of all, what does the district policy on images actually say? If there’s a written policy of “must inform parents in writing X days before showing a nude image” then deviating from that policy, especially knowing and flagrant violation of that policy would be grounds of dismissal. This is why companies and government agencies tend to have very thick employee manuals— there are policies in place about all kinds of things including posting images of the workplace on social media.
Secondly, how much did he actually show? Showing David from the waist up would have definitely allowed students to appreciate the skill involved in creating the statue without the baggage of showing naughty bits. And going further, if he’d done something like show only the naughty bits, there’d be little doubt that he wasn’t really trying to show kids the art but was trying to use the art as an excuse to give kids an eyeful of dick and balls. (I’m pretty doubtful of this, though it might explain why he didn’t want kids telling their parents about the incident and why he insisted it wasn’t pornography)
Third, it would matter very much whether the principal had a history of similar behavior. An otherwise good teacher who simply missed the deadline to inform parents is probably not getting fired especially if he apologizes and doesn’t do it again. A teacher with a history of trying to sneak in sketchy materials (either sexually explicit or violent) for purposes other than education isn’t getting the benefit of the doubt here.
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Or as motivated/biased.
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