Who knew there was a Republican teacher?

WABC | Middle School Teacher In Trouble Over Presidential Photo?
Veteran English teacher Shiba Pillai-Diaz says she was shocked when three parents confronted her. The three, insisting the teacher either add John Kerry's photo to the montage of presidents or remove the Bush photo. When Pillai-Diaz refused, she says the school's vice-principal threatened her job which is an act that has parents here fuming.

However...

South Brunswick Post | Hank Kalet: South Brunswick teacher vs. the school administration media battle will leave the truth hidden.
The district says Crossroads South administrators had been hearing complaints previous to the back-to-school night about Ms. Pillai-Diaz from students and parents saying she was using her position to engage in partisan politicking. The district said Mr. Daniels "met with Ms. Pillai-Diaz and cautioned her not to engage in partisan political discussions in her Language Arts classes."

However, the district continued to receive complaints, the superintendent wrote, which culminated in a confrontation on back-to-school night and a request by Mr. Daniels on Friday that she remove the "bulletin board materials because they were being viewed as contributing to an ongoing disruption of the teaching-learning environment." She refused and then had a meeting with Mr. Warfel, who "repeated the directive."

"At this point," according to the superintendent's letter, she "abruptly left the building, abandoning her post of duty and her classroom responsibilities."

Ms. Pillai-Diaz was not fired, the superintendent said in his letter. Mr. Warfel only asked her to turn in her building key because he believed she had resigned when she left the school.

...Ms. Pillai-Diaz has become an archetype in the right's mythology of victimhood, a flaming example of how the so-called liberal powers-that-be that control the world.

...What has happened here is what happens with many stories. Because our major media are obsessed with conflict and controversy, they chase stories like this and make more of them than they warrant. And now with blogs and their instant opinions, stories like this are stripped of their specifics, of their nuance and turned into political emblems.

Oh, so now it's my fault?

Houston Chronicle | Class's viewing of 'Fahrenheit 9/11' has dad steamed
A Southeast Texas businessman is upset that his son's English class watched Michael Moore's scathing documentary on President Bush and his handling of events after the terrorist attacks.

Michael Kurth, a veteran, said he was opposed to the film Fahrenheit 9/11 based on its R rating and political partisanship. His son, Matthew, 17, said that he put his head on his desk and tried to sleep through it.

...Michael Ryals, principal of Pathways Learning Center, said he previewed part of the film before he allowed the teacher to show it in class Friday.

"I didn't hear anything that was offensive to me," he told the Beaumont Enterprise in Saturday's editions, adding that he did not know of the R rating.

I'm sure he didn't see anything wrong.