Keller ISD’s Timber Creek High School
Less than two weeks after unceremoniously cancelling Timber Creek High School’s planned production of The Laramie Project, officials in the Keller Independent School District announced today (Wednesday, March 6), that the production is back on, according to the Dallas Morning News.
In an email to the community today, Superintendent Tracy Johnson wrote, “Keller ISD’s administration recognizes the time and effort that has been put into the adapted version of The Laramie Project by students and staff members. Upon further consideration of this, the administration has decided to proceed as previously planned with the May performance of The Laramie Project.”
KISD officials had notified parents and students in a Feb. 23 email that the production had been cancelled. They gave no warning and offered no clear explanation for the decision, although a spokesman issued a statement on Feb. 26 saying the decision was “made by many stakeholders,” the Morning News reports, and “The decision to move forward with another production at Timber Creek High School was based on the desire to provide a performance similar to the ones that have created much excitement from the community, like this year’s Keller ISD musical productions of Mary Poppins and White Christmas.”
The cancellation, coming as it did in the wake of the death of Owasso, Okla., nonbinary teenager Nix Benedict after the teen was beaten severely by three classmates in a school bathroom, KISD’s decision drew a quick and angry backlash.
In the days after the cancellation, more than 4,000 people signed an online petition at Change.org, according to Dallas Morning News, urging school officials to reconsider, saying that canceling the production was “not only suppressing an important piece of history but also denying our students a chance to understand and empathize with the struggles faces by the LGBTQ+ community.”
The Laramie Project playwright Moisés Kauffman called the school district out, and, the Morning News notes, angry students and community members packed the Feb. 28 KISD school board meeting to speak out about the cancellation and about a recent incident in which Keller ISD Trustee Sandi Walker and another trustee escorted a film crew from an evangelical TV program in the Netherlands around the Central High School campus earlier in the month. Walker has since announced she is stepping down.
Last year, KISD trustees passed a rule prohibiting faculty and staff from using or encouraging anyone else to use proper pronouns for trans students, and before that that, the board approved a policy banning across all grade levels books discussing gender fluidity, according to Dallas Morning News.
— Tammye Nash
