INDIANAPOLIS TEACHER BANNED from teaching and suspended for a year and a half... over a book or insubordination?

I drew the line this year by obtaining a job in a different school system, resigning from the system which chose to employ an extreme bully of a principal (things much worse that book censorship) and am now free to speak my piece to the professional standards commission, the newspapers, parents and whoever else I chose. I made sure my employment and my certification was protected before I began to respond to the principal’s egomaniacal actions. If I had been in her position I would have held the books, contracted for a position with another system for the following year, finished the current school year, then gifted the books to the kids at the end of the school year.

They can’t fire you once they have accepted your resignation. Any action taken against a teacher after she has resigned is viewed as retribution and is illegal. On March 24, 2008, an English teacher at Perry Meridian High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, Connie Heerman, was suspended for a year-and-a-half without pay for using the Freedom Writer's Diary in her classroom against the wishes of the school board.

2 Administrators objected to racial slurs and sexual content in portions of the book. 3 Heerman had received permission the previous year to attend a workshop based on the books and obtained permission slips from the parents involved. The school board contends that Heermen did not properly follow the rules to receive permission to use the book.

4 Erin Gruwell commented on the controversy, saying, "The best way to get a teenager to read a book is to ban it.