Dr. Josh Hamilton, a three year veteran of Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District in Texas, claimed this week that he lost his job after mentioning to a group of students that he’s gay. School officials insist that Hamilton lost his job for sending a text message to a student.
Hamilton, who served as a coach for the school’s speech team, says he casually mentioned to a group of students that he was gay during a speech tournament. The next day, Hamilton says, human resources contacted him about his comments and asked to inspect his cell phone message history. Not long after, Hamilton was placed on administrative leave before the district announced it would fire him.
School officials insist firing Hamilton had nothing to do with his sexual orientation. Rather, the district says he sent inappropriate text messages to a student discussing his personal life. “To be clear, Mr. Hamilton’s sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with the reason Mr. Hamilton has been proposed for termination,” district spokeswoman Kristin Snively said in a statement. “Mr. Hamilton has been proposed for termination for good cause due to violations of the District’s electronic communications policy, violations of student privacy, failure to follow written directives, and violations of the Texas Educator’s Code of Ethics. In GCISD, we hold all employees to high standards for their interactions with our most important people, our students. His conduct is not acceptable for an educator in GCISD.”
Related: This bisexual teacher came out to help a suicidal student, then his school fired him
Hamilton claims he only texted a student about a babysitting arrangement, though he did mention that he would be on a date at one point when requesting childcare. “If we’re going to fire a teacher for texting a kid, we’re going to fire a lot of teachers in Texas,” Hamilton said.
The district’s Board of Trustees voted 7-0 Monday to allow Hamilton’s termination. Hamilton plans to appeal to the state education agency.
The case of Josh Hamilton comes at a sensitive time for LGBTQ rights in the workplace, as the Trump Administration has argued before the Supreme Court that queer Americans are not entitled to civil rights protections, and that businesses should have the right to fire employees for identifying as LGBTQ.
JaredMacBride
People who call themselves “Dr.” because they have a PhD re usually as phony as a three dollar bill.
Raphael
But that’s what is stand for… Is not easy, fast or cheap to become a PhD. Its only fair for them to call themselves “Dr”.
Hdtex
Jared shut up and get me the Big Mac and fries I ordered….
Brian
Do you really not know what a doctorate is?
IanHunter
Are you that special kind of stupid? Congratulations on your degree in underwater basket making.
Kangol2
A PhD is a doctoral degree, as is a EdD, etc., so someone who earns one, or any other doctoral degree (M.D., D.O., D.Div., etc.) can call themselves a”Dr.” Including you, if you can finish the coursework, dissertation, and whatever else is required.
Chipper
Jared YOU are the phony “as a three dollar bill”! shame on you. Sounds like you are jealous that someone got a education higher than yours. There was no call for your statement. Shame!@
tf3.0
A teacher should not be texting a student. That is incredibly shady
Brian
No it’s not. It happens all the time. That’s how you communicate with kids these days.
Chipper
Nothing shady about it.. you sound shady!
Jonathan Bigsby
Without revealing too much because I know this man. He is manipulative and is lying about being gay. He made demeaning comments about me when he found out I was gay 6 years ago. He also was known to lie and was asked to leave because he would create false stories about kids who would stand up to him. Don’t believe everything you read and this man is a snake.
Kangol2
These are explosive comments about this man, so I hope you are telling the truth and not some troll trying to create a spectacle with lies and slander about someone you don’t know.
Cam
What do you mean “Without revealing too much” and then making a large number of accusations?
If the guy is as shady as you say feel free to post evidence.
djmcgamester
Here’s my take. Do not, under any circumstances, text your students. I worked in a school at one point and a gay student followed me on social media (MySpace, which shows you just how long ago that was). It became something of an issue. I had a discussion with the principal. We talked about telling the kid that we couldn’t connect on social media going forward. Now, kids in school did know I was gay, but the principal never asked me. She also didn’t fire me. This is a roundabout way of saying don’t text students.
Rock-N-RollHS
I’m a college professor and select students and I text often. Just keep a record of the texts. They will speak for themselves. There is nothing incriminating about a text; it’s what is in the text.
dustashed
I don’t get it– we text our professors all the time.. and this was 10-15 years ago. I don’t get why its a bigger deal now when that’s now the most convenient way of communicating; Also the whole class were facebook/friendster friends with most of our instructors.. at least those who knew how to setup facebook 10 years ago
dustashed
the only downside I saw at that time was a bunch of teachers sending chain messages and you feel bad telling them to stop sending spam; this was in an era before iPhones and you have to keep deleting messages otherwise your inbox would become full
dinard38
Queerty, I don’t know why you keep flagging my comments for review. The comment I posted on this thread earlier today is still awaiting moderation. I didn’t use any profanity or inappropriate words, so I don’t know what your deal is.
Also, y’all need to fix this CAPTCHA issue.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Their moderating system is really quirky. Sometimes I’ll make a comment, gets flagged and cannot figure out why.
CAPTACHA is more annoying than the bots it was put in place to get rid of!!
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Their moderating system is really quirky. Sometimes make a comment, gets flagged and cannot figure out why.
CAPTACHA is more annoying than the bots it was put in place to get rid of!!
inbama
Yes, there are days when I can’t post -anything and I just keep getting the same error message about CAPTCHA with no explanation as what’s needed to be done.
inbama
Yes, there are days when I can’t post anything, and I just keep getting the same error message about CAPTCHA with no explanation as what’s needed to be done.
RoyGBiv
Keep in mind that these are underaged minors. Children. Teachers are warned every year not to use personal phone numbers for communicating with students. There are other means of communicating that are approved, such as GoogleClassroom, which is open to parents, but is private otherwise, so far as discussing grades and etc.