A Florida teacher has been fired for using a student’s preferred name without the consent of the student’s parents.
Melissa Calhoun, a teacher at Satellite High School near Cape Canaveral, will not have her contract renewed for next school year after she called a student by a preferred name without getting a form signed by the parents, the district said.
Calhoun is thought to be the first teacher fired over Florida’s new law requiring teachers to obtain parental consent before referring to students by a different name than their legal one. This is the second school year the law has been in effect.
The student’s parent reportedly alerted Brevard Public Schools that Calhoun was calling the student by a different name.
Members of the community said this case was related to the student’s transgender-identifying identity.
“BPS supports parents’ rights to be the primary…
