Assistant Principal in Mississippi school fired over reading THIS book in class

The Assistant Principal of a Mississippi elementary school was fired last week for having read the children's book "I Need a New Butt!" to the students of Std. II over his Zoom classroom.

It was 'Read Across America' week, and the Hinds County School District in Mississippi were awaiting an administrator to read a copy to its Std. II students, then Toby Price, the assistant principal at Gary Road Elementary School decided to take up the task.

However, this went wrong as the picked piece of reading got objectionable to the young listener group. The New York Times reported that on March 2, the district superintendent, Delesicia Martin, called him into her office and told him he was on administrative leave, Mr. Price said. He was fired two days later, accused of violating the standards of conduct section of the Mississippi Educator Code of Ethics.

In a letter, PEN America wrote, “in positioning the act of reading a book as a violation of ethics, the district is implying that any educator could be terminated under similar circumstances” — a fear that many teachers are already grappling with after a slew of Republican-led efforts last fall to ban schools from teaching and discussing race, racism and other “divisive concepts.”