Students protested on the steps of IISD headquarters on Monday, April 18 before telling board members they don’t feel safe in school during the public comment portion of the board meeting. (David Taffet/Dallas Voice)

Former students and other community members attended an Irving ISD meeting on Monday evening, April 18, to support English teacher Rachel Stonecipher. The group of 35 supporters included Texas state Rep. terry Meza and Resource Center’s Rafael McDonnell.

Stonecipher was removed from her class early in the school year, because she displayed a Safe Space sticker on her classroom door. The former MacArthur H.S. teacher is now assigned to the district’s disciplinary high school and expects to be terminated at the end of the school year.

McDonnell told the crowd on the steps of IISD headquarters that he’d been working for more than half a decade to have the school district implement a non-discrimination policy.

Meza said she encouraged the school district to adopt a welcoming resolution for immigrant children. While Irving overwhelmingly defeated her resolution, Grand Prairie adopted an amended version that also included LGBTQ students.

During the public comment portion of the IISD meeting, one student after another stood to say, “I’m here in support of Miss Stonecipher.”

One student said she was a critical part of the success of students at MacArthur.

Student Elle Caldon said, “She was my writing coach. She encouraged me to try new things.” Since Stonecipher’s removal from the campus, Caldon said, the Gay Straight Alliance is gone, the journalism class has produced no school newspaper and the philosophy club was defunct.

The claim against Safe Space stickers was that it implied classrooms without stickers weren’t safe for LGBTQ students. The principal claimed the entire campus is a safe space. But one student told the board, “One teacher made fun of my rainbow bandana. You claim we should feel safe at school. We don’t.”

— David Taffet