An Ohio mayor has issued an ultimatum to his city’s school board after an assignment given to students caused a major uproar.
“It has come to my attention that your educators are distributing essentially what is child pornography in the classroom,” Hudson Mayor Craig Shubert told the school board Monday night. “I’ve spoken to a judge this evening. She’s already confirmed that. So I’m going to give you a simple choice: You either choose to resign from this board of education or you will be charged.”
The controversy stems from an assignment given to high school students taking a college-credit course called Writing in the Liberal Arts II. Part of the curriculum for that course is to answer writing prompts from a textbook called “642 Things to Write About.”
According to outraged parents, one of the prompts was to “write a sex scene you wouldn’t show your mom,” and another was to “rewrite the sex scene from above into one that you’d let your mom read.”
Another prompt involved asking students to describe what beer tastes like.
Superintendent Phil Herman called the prompts “inappropriate and offensive.”
“The district immediately determined this writing resource should not be in the hands of our students, and on Monday, collected the books from the students enrolled in the course,” he reportedly said. “It is important to note that at no time were any of these inappropriate writing prompts assigned as part of the class.”
But the school board members remain defiant, claiming Thursday that they will not resign.
“At this time, no Board of Education member has indicated any intention to resign,” Board President David Zuro said. “”While we respect the mayor’s position within the city of Hudson, in accordance with the state laws of Ohio, the supervision of the public schools of this district is the responsibility of the Board of Education.”
Whether the school board could actually be tried on child pornography charges, as promised by Shubert, remains unclear.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
