A school principal said she was forced to resign after parents made a complaint when she showed her sixth-grade class imagery of Michelangelo's sculpture "David" in a Renaissance art lesson.
Michelangelo, one of the most renowned artists of the Renaissance, created the marble sculpture in the years between 1501 to 1504 at the height of the much-celebrated cultural movement. It is displayed at the Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze in Florence, Italy.
As reported by the Tallahassee Democrat, Hope Carrasquilla was principal of Tallahassee Classical School for under a year when she resigned from the role during an emergency board meeting on Monday.
She said she was told by the school's board chair, Barney Bishop, that she would have to resign from her position at the Leon County school lest she be formally dismissed. She believes the cause of her forced departure was the controversial art lesson.
The lesson entailed learning about Michelangelo's sculpture "David", the "Creation of Adam" fresco painting and Boticelli's "Birth of Venus".
Carrasquilla said in a recent statement (via the Tallahassee Democrat) that Bishop had "expressed his displeasure with my leadership when parents became upset about policies or procedures not being followed to the T. He was more concerned about litigation and appeasing a small minority of parents, rather than trusting my expertise as an educator for more than 25 years."
Bishop has refused to disclose why he asked her to resign, citing the school's employment legal advice.
Parents learned in an email sent to them that the school's new principal would be Cara Wynn - the third principal since the school opened more than two years ago in the fall of 2020
"It’s not unusual in new charter schools to go through several principals," Bishop insisted.
Carrasquilla said two of the parents who complained were aggrieved at not being notified about the lesson and the third parent referred to the lesson as "pornographic".
According to the former principal, however, a letter informing the parents of the art lesson was supposed to be sent out to them.
She told HuffPost that as a result of "a series of miscommunications," parents did not receive any letters.
Speaking to the outlet, Bishop insisted that the incident incident was one of several issues with Carrasquilla.
Bishop also said that he was lobbying for legislation that would allow parents even more input in their children's education.
"Parental rights trump everything else," Bishop said. He went on to say that remote learning during the pandemic gave parents more insight into their kids' education and led to some opting for schools like Tallahassee Classical.
"They didn’t like the woke indoctrination that was going on," he said.
