USA. School principal loses job after showing children Michelangelo’s David sculpture

Hope Carrasquilla, who took over as principal of the Tallahassee Classical School in Tallahassee, Florida less than a year earlier, announced her resignation at an emergency board meeting on Monday, the Tallahassee Democrat reported on Friday. Carrasquilla told the newspaper’s website that the president of the school board told her she would “resign or be fired”. According to the former principal, it was related to a Renaissance art lesson in one of the classrooms.

“It saddens me that my time here had to end like this,” Carrasquilla told TD reporters. She explained that the law obliges the school to teach Renaissance art lessons to sixth-graders, usually 11 and 12-year-olds. Meanwhile, three parents complained that their children were “uncomfortable” during a lesson where a picture of Michelangelo’s David was shown. Two of them felt they should have been given advance notice of what their children would see – a third parent complained that the lesson was “pornographic”.

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Two months earlier, the school board had decided that parents should be informed of “potentially controversial” content two weeks before it was presented in class. Carrasquilla told the Huffington Post that prior to the Renaissance art lesson, the usual notification was not sent due to a “series of misunderstandings”. One of the parents was “clearly nervous” and “thought that her child should not see a 16th-century Renaissance sculpture” – she noted in an interview with the portal.

According to The Art Newspaper, the issue of Carrasquilla’s loss of office is linked to “the rising tide of Conservative legislation in Florida.” Governor Ron DeSantis is sometimes referred to as the “governor of education,” the magazine noted, listing that the politician signed a bill banning transgender athletes from playing on all-female teams in public schools and passed the Parental Rights in Education Act, banning any discussion of sexuality and gender in preschool and first graders. three grades of primary school.

Michelangelo’s David is considered one of the most important works of the Renaissance and an element of world heritage. Next to the Pieta, it is the most famous sculpture by this artist. The original statue of David is more than 5 meters high and can be admired in Florence’s Accademia Gallery.

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