The El Paso Independent School District board of trustees is moving forward with a plan to remove a high school teacher after allegedly being caught defending pedophiles. The EPISD voted unanimously to support Superintendent of Schools Diana Sayavedra’s proposed termination of the teacher in question.
Amber Parker, an English teacher at Franklin High School, is being recommended for termination after a student in one of her classes secretly recorded her telling students, “Stop calling them that. You’re not allowed to label people like that.””We’re not gonna call them that,” the teacher is heard saying in the video. “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.”
Upon discovery and validation of the video’s authenticity, she was placed on administrative leave pending the investigation’s outcome and the school’s superintendent’s recommendation to the board of trustees of the school board.
The move has triggered an outcry from supporters and critics of the maligned teacher. Supporters claim that the recording was edited and taken out of context. The conversation, apparently part of a class debate, was reportedly in preparation for reading Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. It can be argued that John Proctor, 30 years old and one of the play’s central figures, committed an act of pedophilia in his love interest for Abigail, who was just 17. Supporters claim that Ms. Parker’s edited comments were taken out of context and were meant to address how modern-day society would react to the underlying theme. Ryann Ruvalcaba, a junior at Franklin High School told Fox 17, “She [the teacher] was expressing how it was ridiculous how we [society] might not be able to call people pedophiles. That we [society] will probably have to start calling them MAPs because it can be offensive to them [pedophiles]. The class agreed.”
One of the school board trustees, Daniel Call, originally took a similar position but reversed course over time. Call claims that “There were more things that the public may not know about that was included on the closed findings.”
