(Stephen Horn, This Week in the Triangle) A Wake County middle school’s “inclusive” environment has been cited in denying a class transfer request for a female seventh-grade student feeling unsafe with her male English teacher, who has been photographed at the school in a skirt and reportedly discusses his homosexual “love life” with his students.
“He talks about it to all of us,” says the middle schooler, who will not be identified by name in this report. “He’s been like, ‘There’s a hot guy at my local coffee shop.’”
The image of Adam Chu, who teaches English Language Arts at the Leroy Martin Gifted and Talented Magnet Middle School, shows him wearing a white skirt in the hallway outside his classroom.
As reported by the News & Observer, the Wake County school district says the photo is from the school’s Spirit Week last year, which included a “Barbenheimer” theme: “wear pink or black OR dress like you are from the ’40s!”.
The Principal’s Response
After meeting with the student’s parents, Martin Magnet Middle School Principal Marla Mondora responded via letter, denying the request to modify the student’s schedule to remove her from Chu’s classroom, which constitutes one of the school’s four core classes.
In the letter, which was provided by the student’s mother, Mondora wrote that Chu’s skirt was “of appropriate length” and did not feature “inappropriate illustrations, advertisements or messages,” finding that “Mr. Chu’s dress complies with policy and does not distract from the work that is done in the classroom and is in accordance with health and safety standards.”
The letter continues with Mondoroa claiming that she “cannot substantiate that an adversarial relationship has been established” between Chu and the student based on the information provided by the parents, noting that the student’s grade in Chu’s class remains “excellent.”
Finally, the letter responds to a characterization of the parents’ concern that “the perception [they] have of [Chu] does not align with [their] family values,” citing that the school “work[s] to create a learning environment that is inclusive of all students and staff.”
DEI Policy
The Wake County Board of Education has come down solidly on the side of the neo-Marxist principles of diversity, equity and inclusion, as encapsulated by two of the “Core Values” adopted by the board:
- #2 Every student is expected to learn, grow, and succeed while we eliminate the ability to predict achievement based on socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity.
- #5 The Board of Education, superintendent, and all staff value a diverse school community that is inviting, respectful, inclusive, flexible, and supportive.
In addition, after being hired as superintendent last year, Robert P. Taylor wasted no time in declaring his commitment to a “laser focus” on equity, including by “eliminat[ing] disproportionate discipline referrals and absences,” regardless of the disproportionality of misbehavior.
School Board Activism
The student’s mother, Jessica Lewis, is vice chair of the Wake County chapter of Moms for Liberty, and has previously addressed the Wake County school board on topics such as sexually-explicit material in the schools, the prioritizing of DEI over academic excellence, and the denial of a medical mask exemption to her son, also a student in the Wake County Public School System. (Lewis’s daughter, the subject of this article, has also previously addressed the board in support of protections against biological males in women’s sports.)
In a recent public comment to the Wake County school board earlier this month, before the principal’s findings, Lewis raised the issue of the photograph: “This past weekend…my daughter’s friend sent her a picture of her ELA teacher dressed in a white frilly skirt standing outside his classroom door,” Lewis said.
The image had been widely disseminated in student groupchats without the Spirit Week context indicated it was anomalous with Chu’s normal work outfit.
“As a teacher in an authority figure there’s a level of professionalism that’s expected; his attire is a major red flag,” Lewis continued, questioning the board: “What message is this sending to students? and why is this being allowed?”
In an interview with This Week in the Triangle, Lewis explained that she had no problem with the teacher’s homosexuality, as long as he was teaching English, but she took issue with the fact that he was “talking non-stop about his personal life.”
“I’m not asking for him to be get fired; I have a simple request of asking the school to move [my daughter] to a different English teacher,” Lewis clarified. “She doesn’t feel safe in his class, they should be able to honor that.”
Lewis further addressed the subject during bi-weekly board meeting on Tuesday at the district’s headquarters in Cary.
The board, however, lashed out at the publicity that the matter had received, including Chu’s photo being shared on the popular Libs of TikTok site, and accused Moms for Liberty of being a “hate group.”
.@WCPSS board member Sam Hershey was "really angry" after seeing how y'all responded to @libsoftiktok sharing a photo of a skirt-wearing male middle school teacher
Calls @Moms4Liberty a "hate group", accuses them of "doxxing" the teacher (whose full name and position was in the… https://t.co/HLQYMXLsO2 pic.twitter.com/XlMLmyr6Fz
— Stephen Horn (@stephenehorn) October 16, 2024
Raleigh-based journalist Stephen Horn can be found on Twitter at @stephenehorn or on Substack (“This Week in the Triangle”).
