Teacher Dan DeLong reinstated
November 4, 2009 by IEA Communications
A highly-regarded high school English teacher in southern Illinois, whose suspension generated overwhelming local support and drew interest from around the world, returned to his classroom Tuesday morning.
Early Tuesday, the school board for Southwestern High School ended the suspension that had sidelined Dan DeLong for a week. Delong was suspended with pay after a scientific article about homosexuality in various animal species was included among the options available to students in his sophomore honors English class.
DeLong’s status was the subject of a special board meeting in Piasa on Monday night. A huge crowd of DeLong’s supporters, most of them students, packed the board meeting.
The board went into executive session at around 6:15 Monday night and remained in closed session for more than six hours, with one brief interruption for public comment on the controversy. Three speakers addressed the board in support of DeLong. There were no speakers advocating additional discipline.
During the marathon closed-door meeting, DeLong was represented by IEA UniServ Director Marcus Albrecht.
Despite the highly unusual length of the closed session, and the late hour, a large crowd was still on hand when, shortly after 12:30 am, the executive session ended and the public meeting began.
In a statement that had been worked out with the board, DeLong apologized for presenting his students with material that was not “age appropriate” and thanked his supporters. The room erupted in cheers and applause when DeLong announced he would be back in his classroom Tuesday morning.
As part of the agreement with the district, a “notice of remediation” will be placed in DeLong’s file. There will be no additional discipline.
DeLong’s suspension has attracted worldwide attention. Facebook pages urging support for DeLong garnered thousands of fans within days of being posted as current students, former students and members of the local community were joined by thousands of others. Some of the teacher’s supporters saw DeLong as the target of a political attack based on the content of the controversial article.
This fine teacher should never have had to issue any apology. It is a shame and a sham that he had to make any statement other than “I am looking forward to being back in my classroom tomorrow.” The shame is on the administration who overreacted and mishandled this from day one and the sham is that the school board had to have this statement read to find a way out of the mess their own administration put them in. At least they had the backbone to reverse the intended results of the administration which appears to have been terminating a great teacher. As for the content of the article in question, it is a sad day for public education when high school students are thought to be incapable of reading scientifically researched data and data based conclusions about behavioral patterns of animals.