Seymour Flops
Diamond Member
A Long Island teacher “forced” a 5th-grade girl to go by a male name and pronouns, confusing the child so much that she had suicidal thoughts, a lawsuit alleges.
Debra Rosenquist — a 5th-grade teacher at Terryville Road Elementary School in Port Jefferson Station — started calling the 9-year-old Leo and using opposite gender pronouns toward the beginning of the 2021/2022 school year, according to a lawsuit filed in Suffolk County Court by the child’s parents last month.
The parents say they were only clued in about what was happening in January 2022, when the school principal called them telling them their child – referred to in court papers as A.V. – had drawn a picture of a girl, writing “I wanna kill myself” and “I feel sad like a lot,” the filing claims.
The principal also informed the parents that A.V. had even met with the school psychologist telling the mental health worker that she “was confused about her gender identity,” the court papers say.
Despite Rosenquist, 62, having referred to the student “for months at that point” as Leo, it was only during the Jan. 27, 2022 call that the parents were asked for the first time if this name was okay, the suit claims.
Hmmm. This is clearly a toxic person with no business anywhere near a child, ever. Too bad the school district doesn't get that.
Rosenquist was removed from that classroom but is now teaching younger students, according to the family’s lawyer Debra Wabnik.
I'm a special education teacher, and I did not come to the profession until I was nearly forty. When I did, it was if I had been in the wrong jobs over and over again, and that a teacher was what I was born to be . . . what I was. Now, I'm starting to wonder. If this is the future of teaching, I want no part of it.
We have a student with behavioral issues coming to our school next year. One of her behavior concerns is her insistence on being called by a boy's name. If the parents are on board with that, I don't mind it. It is respectful to call people what they want to be called, and if there is one thing you learn dealing with behavior kids is that you often have to give more respect than you get, if you want to get any at all.
But, if there is any expectation that I will hide this important information from her parents, my administrators will be sorely disappointed. I don't believe that a relatively non-Democrat run district like The Four Winds ISD would ever do that, but I'm past the point of being surprised by anything at this point.