According to media reports, a Texas school board has fired a high school teacher who appeared to defend paedophilia to her students. Amber Parker, an English teacher at Franklin High School in El Paso, is heard telling her class to refer to paedophiles as “Minor Attracted Persons” in a clip that was posted to TikTok, according to KFOX.
“Don’t judge people just because they want to have sex with 5-year-olds,” Parker is heard saying in the recording.
Tuesday, September 6, according to the El Paso Times, the board of directors of the El Paso Independent School District unanimously decided to dismiss Parker. The teacher’s remarks were initially deemed to have been taken out of context, according to board trustee Daniel Call, who cited a district official. Instead, Call claimed, Parker was “challenging the students in advance of their reading of the book “The Crucible” by pretending to support a position she didn’t genuinely believe in.”
In an interview with KFOX after the vote, the board trustee said “there were more things that the public may not know about that was included on the closed findings.” Parker told the El Paso Times she was “not legally allowed to comment” on the situation. She can appeal the board’s decision, KFOX reported. Her husband, Jason Parker, commented on Call’s Facebook post and referred to his wife as an “innocent woman.”
“It is both scary and disturbing that that an edited 18 second clip could destroy a 30-year career when taken completely out of context,” Jason Parker said. “She is exemplary as a teacher and truly cares about the students. Needless to say we have spent many sleepless nights because of this cruel release to social media of the 18 seconds.”
