Middletown - Art teacher Peter Panse told his students at Middletown High School that nude figure drawings will help get them into art colleges. He told them about courses in New York City and encouraged them to take a nude figure-drawing course he was proposing to teach outside of school.
In response, four students took nude figure drawing at the New York Academy of Art during the summer, helping build portfolios that have already earned at least one of them a scholarship offer.
But it also got Panse suspended last month.
The kids are too young for such classes, and Panse didn't involve their parents, school board President Vincent Crescenzo said yesterday. In light of a previous scandal, when former Superintendent Robert Sigler was imprisoned in 2003 for having an ongoing sexual relationship with a teen male student, the board needed to "be proactive," he said.
"We didn't want it said that the Board of Education again turned a blind eye to the abuse of our children," Crescenzo said. "We need to protect our children. We are talking about 14-, 15-, 16-year-old children and what they were going to be exposed to."
Panse's lawyer sees it another way: "It's a Neanderthal administration," said Jonathan Lovett. "They've got to be sufficiently brain-dead to be doing what they did.
"On a scale of one to 10 in stupidity, this is 11."
A group of Panse's students and their parents told the school board Thursday night what a loss his suspension is to their art education and possibly their futures.
"Until recently, I thought that it wasn't even conceivable to get into an art school, let alone with a scholarship," said Reanna Fisher, a junior who received art-scholarship offers from two colleges. "He's the first and only teacher to help and guide me on where I need to go to have a chance at these schools."
"What kind of message are you sending to the rest of the teachers in the district?" asked Reanna's father, Jerry Fisher. "He's trying to help students, help me because the scholarships we are talking about are substantial."
One parent said yesterday that he was downright opposed to his daughter being exposed to nude male models at such a young age. But he didn't think Panse should be punished.
"I don't think my 16-year-old daughter should be in that situation," he said. "But the fact that it was suggested in class - I have no problem with that. I am a dad and I can say no."
Panse was suspended on Dec. 16 and brought up on two school disciplinary charges for recruiting, soliciting or encouraging students to take the nude figure-drawing course he planned to give and for doing that after he'd been warned to "avoid making any comments" that students could construe as sexual.
It's a question of what is appropriate for teens in school, Crescenzo said.
It's absurd, said Lovett, and also a question of free speech.
In the end, it will be up to a hearing officer to decide.
