Comments about Wake teacher are 'bullying,' school board member says

Recent comments online about a Martin Middle School teacher are distractions and offensive, Wake school board and community members said Tuesday night.

Online comments and Moms for Liberty — a group that describes its mission as securing "parental rights" — have targeted the teacher, who wore a knee-length tutu during a “Barbenheimer” spirit day at the school in October 2023.

The district’s dress code doesn’t forbid a male teacher from wearing a skirt, although managers can make more subjective determinations of appropriateness.

A photo of the teacher wearing the skirt surfaced online Monday after Moms for Liberty’s vice chairwoman tried without success to have her daughter removed from the teacher’s class, and Moms for Liberty members posted on social media about it, along with other prominent conservative accounts.

School Board Member Sam Hershey, whose district includes Martin Middle, noted the uproar is taking place a year after the spirit day and that it’s the first time he’s even heard about it.

“You know how many parents reached out that day after that day? Zero,” Hershey said. “I think it was in the yearbook. Do you know how many parents reached out to me about that? Zero.”

School system spokeswoman Lisa Luten said the district did not receive any complaints about the spirit day or the teacher.

The spirit day was a nod to the movies “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” and asked students to wear pink or black or dress “like you are from the ‘40s.”

The conflict Tuesday is part of an ongoing conflict between Moms for Liberty and school boards across the country over LGBTQ+ issues in schools.

Earlier this fall, Jessica Lewis, the vice chairwoman of Moms for Liberty and mom of two, asked her seventh-grade daughter’s principal to switch her to another English language arts class after she saw the photo of the teacher wearing a skirt.

The school denied the request. Moms for Liberty shared a letter Lewis received, in which the principal said the teacher hadn’t violated dress codes and that the teacher and her daughter didn’t have an adversarial relationship.

On Tuesday, Lewis argued her daughter felt “unsafe” in his class after those events.

“If my child does not feel safe in his class, she needs to be moved,” she said.

Lewis further complained of a broader culture of “inclusiveness” in the school, including having a “male gay Black teacher” teach a dance class that has all girls in it. She also complained that her daughter’s science teacher asked students what their pronouns were in case they identified as a different gender.

Moms for Liberty members spoke out against the school’s principal Tuesday and called the teacher a “groomer.”

But they were outnumbered by opponents of Moms for Liberty who came to defend the school from what they said was a smear campaign. They said the teacher wasn’t a predator simply for wearing a skirt.

“Please [do] not let the voice of an extremist minority distract us from real issues that are facing our schools,” said Carrie Whitaker, an elementary school mom.

Hershey said social media comments attacking the teacher and the principal made him furious. He said the whole ordeal was intended to incite “hate, divisiveness and bullying.”

“They do not deserve, in any way shape, or form, what happened on social media,” he said.

WRAL News reached out to the teacher Tuesday night for comment and has not heard back.