One trustee on the McKinney ISD school board is pushing back on what he says amounts to the “sexualization” of students within the district despite backlash from other administrators.
McKinney ISD has faced numerous controversies over the past several years regarding obscene books in school libraries and associations with drag queen story hours, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. Chad Green was elected to the school board in 2021 and has since received a lot of criticism from activists for his mission to “stop sexualizing minors.”
In an interview with The Dallas Express, Green said he “really didn’t join the board planning to deal with this stuff,” but issues began to arise concerning resources and content offered to students and even conduct demonstrated by students — such as those coming to school dressed as “furries” — that related back to sexual topics.
“Furries” are individuals who masquerade as anthropomorphic animal characters online, and some wear costumes of their chosen animal in real life. The practice has a controversial sexual component, according to a scholarly analysis in the peer-reviewed Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Green said that within his first two months on the board, students’ parents were calling him about these issues.
“At the beginning of school, they were watching kids go into the schools that were wearing cat and dog costumes,” he said. “I came to find out they’re called ‘furries.'”
Green said he approached his fellow trustees to put this issue on the agenda and formally address it as a violation of the district’s dress code policy. Two board members are required to put an item on the agenda, but Green said none of his colleagues would agree to it.
In November 2021, Governor Greg Abbott called for school officials to ban “pornographic” books such as Gender Queer: a Memoir — a graphic novel containing depictions of sexual activity — and In the Dream House from school libraries.
“A parent asked me to go with them to one of our libraries at McKinney High School, and … we had the books [in the online catalog],” he told The Dallas Express. “They were all checked out [along with] the videos that were associated with the books.”
Green took issue with the presence of this content in McKinney schools and said he consequently received a call from Amy Dankel, vice president of the board, who threatened to have him removed from office.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the board censured Green in June 2022 for “violating the board’s operating protocols and policies,” requiring him to obtain written approval for any visit to a McKinney ISD campus.
“From then on, I really tried to engage parents. … It was not just our high school; it was all the way down to elementary,” he said. “We had [Gender Queer: A Memoir] available online within three clicks of any elementary student to have access to. Those are [illustrations of] minors engaging in sexual activity.”
Green noted that any visual depiction of a minor “engaging in sexual conduct” is illegal under Texas law. Still, he told The Dallas Express that the school board began “kicking out” parents who expressed opposition to having such content in school libraries.
One of these parents was Samuel Hall. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Hall was banned from setting foot on McKinney ISD property in May 2022. The Texas Education Agency later overturned this decision, and the ban was lifted in April 2023.
“It was over this issue of the [sexually explicit] books in the schools,” Green said. “The books are really just a symptom. They’re one of many symptoms. The other things that keep coming up are the furries. KD Sims posted a picture of a student dressed as a cat and erasing the student’s face.”
“Our parents need to wake up and become aware of this. In my opinion, we’ve already exposed [too] many kids to these sexual materials,” Green added.
He said the school administration must stop protecting and promoting notions that distract from an actual education.
“It seems like we are focused on everything but education,” he said. “I want to focus on math, language, arts, and social studies. That’s it. … I’m not interested in any of this woke crap coming out.”
“If we focus on those things, I think we can become a really good district,” he continued. “We’re way underperforming where we should be performing.”
According to data from the Texas Education Agency, McKinney ISD saw just 62% of its students score at grade level on their STAAR exams during the 2021-2022 school year.
Trailing far behind even this figure is Dallas ISD, where only 41% of students managed to meet the same standard.
Dallas ISD also recently ran afoul of concerned parents and community members who claimed the district was allowing students access to sexually explicit books.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, there were protests against the district’s leadership over books like Jack of Hearts (and other parts) by Lev A.C. Rosen.
“If it had been a movie, it would be rated X. It’s offensive and completely inappropriate for our children,” Tami Brown Rodriguez told The Dallas Express back in February.
Dallas ISD seemingly pulled the title from shelves earlier this year.
Still, the district retained several controversial titles, including Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey.
BookLooks.org, which publishes “book content reviews centered around objectionable content, including profanity, nudity, and sexual content” for parents, gave the book a 4 out of 5 for containing “illustrations depicting non-sexual nudity; sexual activities including sexual assault.”
Green noted that he supports the teachers of McKinney ISD but opposes the agenda pushed by administrators.
“I think we have good teachers,” he told The Dallas Express. “I think they’re overburdened with things coming out of the administration. … They don’t agree with this stuff. They don’t want to lose their jobs. Many of them have quit and now gone into other things because they don’t want to be teaching the garbage that the district is asking them to teach.”
However, many people are not pleased with Green’s crusade. One parent took issue with Green testifying before the Texas Legislature in March in favor of House Bill 900, which aims to keep books deemed sexually explicit out of school libraries.
HB 900 was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Parent Susan Holdrich alleged Green’s testimony included “unsubstantiated rumors” about drag queen story hours in McKinney schools and said his statements about the administration’s agenda to push sexual topics were “blatant misrepresentations,” per Texas Scorecard.
Holdrich filed a complaint with the school board, which was addressed at a board meeting on July 31. The board voted 6-1 to request Green’s resignation, but they do not have the authority to compel another trustee to resign.