"If you say you are gay in public you will be shot in the head." My bittersweet anniversary.

[Teacher of the Year]

8. It was investigated by the state

I never sued but I didn't back down and fought. The Union had an incredible lawyer, as did I, who guided me through the fight and saved me more than once. I was only fired for two weeks and eventually, my case was used in the US Supreme Court (Bostick vs. Clayton County) in an Amicus Brief by Southern Poverty Law Center where I was used as an example of how badly LGBTQ employees could be treated. My case was so clear. The district put me forward for Teacher of the Year and were interviewed as part of the process. The superintendent said I was the best teacher the district had ever had, then I said I was gay, then I was fired, breaking several labor laws to do so. I was never written up, I was never in trouble, I was the first special ed teacher to be not only the Teacher of the Year but also the Union's Educator of Excellence all things my district was part of and then fired.

It all played out in the press with headlines like "Emails show district tried to blackmail Teacher of the Year" and "BOLI (Bureau of Labor and Industries) finds 'substantial evidence of discrimination" against Teacher of the Year.

I never sued though. I wanted the laws to change to keep it from happening to other people. I didn't want their money.

The district did a deep cleaning after this all happened. The superintendent was fired and everyone in the chain of command was removed, demoted or fled (except for the one person who I still have full respect for-they were not part of what happened to me, despite him being the person who fired me. Not long after all of this hit the papers, the school board got obliterated in the election and new blood at that level, did even more house cleaning.

After the Supreme Court ruling, the district also put out an apology to me. It was all new leadership, and the union had proudly shared how the district had done some very deep cleaning and had become a whole new place to work. Mind you, what happened to me stemmed from a couple of administrators doing the wrong thing. The people at that district work with the most in-need groups of. young people who you will meet. They are heroes and should be celebrated and not pilloried because of a few bad apples, who just happened to be at the top of the barrel instead of the bottom.