Texas teacher suspended after student sees nude statue.

Texas teacher sacked in row over gallery nudes

· Parent complains after visit to art museum
· Row over sculpture only part of story, says school


Claims by a Texas schoolteacher that she was sacked after allowing her pupils to see a nude art work during a museum field trip have led to a frenzy of hand-wringing across the US.
A parent complained that his child had been exposed to "an abstract nude" - a Greek funerary relief from 4BC depicting a marble torso.

Later, the teacher, Sydney McGee, was sacked from the school in Frisco, a suburb of Dallas.


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But the school board, battling against criticism from the New York Times and others, has continued to defend itself, claiming that the row over nude sculpture told only part of the story.
Ms McGee took 89 students aged nine and 10 from Fisher elementary school and 12 parents around the Dallas Museum of Art in April.

Following the complaint, she was sent a formal letter from the headteacher that said: "During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations."

Ms McGee has insisted she was picked upon on the grounds of prudery. "We have a lot of sporting things in Frisco, with the soccer and the baseball. But not a lot of those kids go to the museum," she said.

But the Frisco school board claims that she has whipped up a flurry of media coverage which is far from the truth.

"The district is disappointed and concerned that Ms McGee continues to mislead the public and, more importantly, that the major media networks in America continue to ignore the facts that they have gathered," a spokesman said.

He added: "We have been taking students to the Dallas Museum of Art for years and will continue to do so. No teacher has ever been fired for taking a field trip to the museum."

The school alludes to other complaints against Ms McGee, but says it cannot go into details because of confidentiality agreements. It has only suggested that the teacher wore flip-flops to work and did not plan the field trip sufficiently.

The teacher disputes all these claims. Ms McGee's lawyer, Rogge Dunn, told the Guardian: "If the museum trip had nothing to do with it, why did the principal give Ms McGee a dressing down about it the day after the trip and why did they put it in writing a couple of weeks later?"

The plot has thickened further after the Dallas Morning News revealed that eight years ago the teacher accepted an $8,300 (£4,446) settlement to leave a teaching job in a neighbouring school district. The cause of the settlement is not known.

The disclosure led the newspaper to ask: "Was a Frisco art teacher pushed out of a job over a flap about nude art, or is the national media spotlight shining in the wrong place?"

OMG,

They saw an abstract nude? How in God's name do you do an abstract nude?

OMG,

They saw an abstract nude? How in God's name do you do an abstract nude?

Francis if you are a pervert I am a criminal - I have the original.

No difficult. 1. Take all your clothes off 2. Paint.

OMG,

They saw an abstract nude? How in God's name do you do an abstract nude?