School Board Punishes Teacher For Saying Trans Books ‘Inappropriate’

An Ontario teacher was placed on leave after being accused of using “transphobic” language for voicing concern during a board meeting last Monday about the presence of books that celebrate medical gender transition in school libraries.

The teacher, Carolyn Burjoski, claims she is being “bullied, slandered and abused” for arguing that some books in libraries were inappropriate for children.

The Waterloo Region District School Board Chair Scott Piatkowski cut short Burjoski’s presentation after she said the school libraries have books that make the medical transition seem “simple” and “cool” available to kindergartners through sixth-grade students, The National Post reported.

The board, which oversees over 100 schools in the region, voted 5-4 to back up the chair’s decision.

In a video posted on Twitter, Burjoski said that she was informed the following morning by human resources that she was “immediately assigned to home, pending a formal investigation and banned from contacting my colleagues and students.”

“This was particularly upsetting to me because I love my students, and I have not seen them since December,” she said. “When my students excitedly returned to school on Tuesday — the first day of in-class learning after yet another lockdown — their teacher was not there, and they did not know why. I have been silenced and punished.”