Teachers at school legal question

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just wondering in the US what’s the legal position on the following?
  1. Can a Catholic teacher at a public non-religious school refuse to teach about same sex marriage/gender fluidity etc?
  2. Can a non-religious teacher at a Catholic school refuse to teach about traditional marriage/gender issues etc?
[sorry I hope I’m making sense here]
 
I don’t know. But I’ve come to believe that perhaps refusing to teach such topics is not the best course of action. Perhaps teaching the topics and leaing the class in a direction that demands that they think more deeply about such issues is a better way to go.

As a teacher you have enormous power to suggest ways of thinking that the students may not have thought about before.
 
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As a professor of education, I’m not aware of a K-12 curriculum where these topics would be specifically taught. (That doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist, but it seems rather odd.)
 
If this is about you and not just a hypothetical, I’d strongly advise you to talk to a lawyer in real life as opposed to asking the forums.
 
I “think” I can understand the, shall I call it, moral quandary either might find themselves in.

But, unless either teacher is contractually allowed to pick, choose, and set their own curriculum, I don’t think they would ultimately be allowed this freedom!

A person in any job/occupation is usually not allowed to “do their own thing” in that employment. They can usually be expected to do have to do that which the employer wants done and in the manner in which this same employer wants it done. To do otherwise, would seem to me to be tantamount to refusing to do the job assigned and thus would be grounds for dismissal.
 
its pretty well compartmentalized… so, the only people who would have to talk about these issues are health teachers- unless you got your degree in health ed or what have you, you have no reason to worry.
 
Your question is way too broad.
Public education in the USA is traditionally regulated at the state level. That means you have 50 sets of state laws.

Most if not all states have particular requirements for what subjects teachers teach, what must be covered in what grades, etc. The teacher doesn’t just come up with it. When a teacher signs on to teach subject X then they’re expected to cover what the state wants them to cover. If the teacher doesn’t want to do that then the teacher shouldn’t be taking the job.

Given that we have enough trouble just teaching the kids subjects like reading, math and science in our public schools, as well as the potential controversy of gender and marriage topics, very few public schools are going to be teaching on topics like “gender fluidity” or “traditional marriage” at the high school or junior high school level. Gender and marriage studies are the type of subject one takes in college, and of course professors there have a lot of leeway.
 
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No to both. School administrators approve the syllabuses, whether its a Catholic or other private school or a public school.

The teacher doesn’t have a choice in the matter.
 
ratio1 said:
just wondering in the US what’s the legal position on the following?
  1. Can a Catholic teacher at a public non-religious school refuse to teach about same sex marriage/gender fluidity etc?
  2. Can a non-religious teacher at a Catholic school refuse to teach about traditional marriage/gender issues etc?
[sorry I hope I’m making sense here]
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Public school is not responsible for providing your norms.

They should teach you reading, writing, arithmetic and disciplines that combine the three like history, the sciences, economics and technology.

They’re getting out of their lane by venturing into this gender crud.
 
Vonsalza said:
They’re getting out of their lane by venturing into this gender crud.
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Which is precisely why the school itself and teachers themselves usually don’t do it. They don’t want to be a target for somebody’s lawsuit.

As shown by the Planned Parenthood lawsuit article someone posted, the schools often get some other outside organization to come in and make a presentation to students. Usually the students have to sign up for this type of presentation and in some cases the parents may have to sign a permission slip allowing their kid to attend it.
 
Giving legal advice expressly prohibited on CAF as is soliciting it. This is a question for a lawyer in the state of residence.
 
This.

We read things on the interwebz and hear things on our favorite talk radio/cable TV show that exaggerate what actually happens in the local public school.

If the person is teaching a sex-ed class or a psychology class, then this may be in the curriculum. Honestly, I do not see how a practicing Catholic could teach sex-ed in a public school because of the many moral landmines.

Sometimes a teacher of young kids will need to address a specific instance with the class, let’s say that a new child comes to class and that child has a non-traditional family. There may need to be some education in order to keep the kid from bullying or isolation “Billy’s family is different. There are many families that are different, some have step-parents, some have a foster mom, some are raised by their Uncle or grandparents. It is good that we are kind to one another.” sort of instruction.
 
Pretty common in our schools to find young children having transgenderism and lgbt shoved down their throat.

Granted our country is more royally screwed than yours at this stage but can almost guarantee that you will encounter it somewhere eventually as well

My little sister was recently pulled from her local school by my step father, because of mandatory Islamic studies that he doesn’t want her going near.

Bottom line for me, if it was my job or my principles - I’m leaving the job.

The law always overrides the teacher here. Whilst I can’t speak for the USA, some of these comments suggest it’s similar.

Just be grateful you aren’t as bad Europe yet.
 
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ErraticFaith said:
The law always overrides the teacher here. Whilst I can’t speak for the USA, some of these comments suggest it’s similar.
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One of the major reasons the US had a huge system of Catholic schools was that the public schools in previous centuries taught with a strong anti-Catholic bias.

Basically, if you don’t want your kid exposed to ideas that run counter to the Church, you’re supposed to send him or her to the Catholic school.
 
Obviously we are on a much smaller scale than yourselves.

The UK expresses the peak ‘showcase’ of multiculturalism. So all public schools do now shy away from promotion of Christianity/religions, aside from Islam because it’s a ‘welcoming olive branch’ apparently (at least that’s what politicians are calling it), to help nones and otherwise better understand them and learn about the religion of peace. In essence it seemed like indoctrination (which is why he pulled my younger sisters from it).

Growing up I moved around somewhat and was in a public school long enough to see the transition from Christian morning assemblies and church visits (Anglican) move towards ‘Christianity is offensive’. At that stage Christian events were scrapped.

So perhaps that clarifies my angle a little. We had far less ‘religiously specific’ schools available. Much of that because Catholicism isn’t a broad denomination here.
 
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I would have great difficulty in being Catholic in the UK.
Of course, this is nothing new. My great-grandparents and their entire family emigrated (from Stoke-on-Trent) largely because it wasn’t easy for them to be Catholic in the UK either.
 
You might say, it’s real front line Catholicism here.

Our resident Imams and Islamic adherants generally aren’t all that keen on moderate Protestants (those who don’t really practise or make their faith too obvious).

So you can probably imagine how Catholicism goes down with them in London.

One thing that does bemuse me, is that the nones and Dawkins generation atheists teach that we should be mocked at all times - whilst Islam should be respected for its ‘noble ideals’.

Baffling.
 
HA! And buy lotto tickets regularly to pay the tuition.

🤩

Sorry. Just couldn’t help it. I taught in a Catholic prek-8 school for 10 years. Most of the Catholics couldn’t afford it. When my daughters went to Catholic High school it was 11 grand a year.

And the parents got hysterical when the Science teacher taught Human anatomy. :roll_eyes:

We had the mandatory "Human Sexuality in the context of Religion. One mother of a 7th grader was aghast that the books (which the parents previewed and could opt out of)
mentioned as she put it “THE P WORD!” 😱

The p word was puberty.

We never had any notion of teaching such things. We did everything in conjunction with Catholic morality. It was mostly about marriage, chastity, and guidelines for dating.
All of this SSA and transgender stuff wasn’t even on the radar of the students. In 5 short years, everything has changed.
 
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The Catholic schools in my area weren’t cheap either. Nevertheless, many, many parents somehow came up with the money. I’d like to say they did it because they wanted their children to have a quality Catholic education, and no doubt some of them were motivated by that. My mother felt it was her duty as a Catholic to send her children to the Catholic school, unless some major upset or crisis or problem occurred preventing it.

However, in my day many kids were also sent to Catholic school, especially Catholic high school, because the public schools were having a lot of problems with integration, violence and drugs.

Nowadays, with fewer Catholic school slots available, it’s becoming more of an “elite” thing to send your kids there than it used to be. I do know that some of them have scholarship aid for students who qualify either through need or merit, and we’ve had discussions on here before that some parishes make the Catholic school free for everybody and expect the parishioners (including those without kids) to pay for it.
 
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