The district strives to “provide a welcoming and inclusive environment for every student, employee and family,” the statement said. "The damage that was done by scraping them down was far worse than just never having them in the first place." In a statement, the district said that it does not retaliate against employees for expressing their personal viewpoints but district policy “prohibits teachers from using the classroom to transmit their personal beliefs.” The district declined to comment on Stonecipher’s situation or other personnel matters. “Ultimately, those same things that made us very strong supporters for the LGBTQ students are the things that got us pulled from school,” Stonecipher said of her case and another teacher who has also been removed. Last month, she was notified that the district plans to terminate her contract. According to her personnel file, which Stonecipher shared with NBC News, the district’s human resources office believed that Stonecipher had called MacArthur’s principal “homophobic,” which Stonecipher denies, and that she made colleagues uncomfortable when she shared her opinion about LGBTQ issues. Stonecipher, who also advised the student newspaper, believes she was removed because she has been outspoken in advocating for LGBTQ children and encouraging journalism students to investigate the sticker removal. “The damage that was done by scraping them down was far worse than just never having them in the first place,” said Rachel Stonecipher, an English and journalism teacher, and another of the GSA sponsors, who was placed on administrative leave in September and barred from communicating with teachers or students. In August, the administration required that all the stickers come down, later explaining in a statement to NBC News that decorations in classrooms, hallways or offices must be “curriculum driven and neutral in viewpoint” to “ensure that all students feel safe regardless of background or identity.”
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It all started with teachers posting small rainbow stickers - long a symbol of the gay pride movement - outside their classrooms to show students that they were LGBTQ allies. “They’re not going to come out outright and say, ‘Don’t say gay,’” she said of the school administration, “but they’re going to make it as difficult as possible for you to be allowed to express yourself or even learn about how you feel, who you are and your identity.” Latin, a dance instructor, said she plans to resign after this school year over the district’s handling of the issue. Ilan Assayag Heavy security accompanied Ashdod's gay pride parade on Friday, June 17, 2016.“It’s like they’re being shadow-banned,” Christine Latin, one of five faculty sponsors of the GSA at MacArthur, said of the student group. MK Ilan Gilon (Meretz) addresses the crowd at Ashdod's gay pride parade on Friday, June 17, 2016. Many singers and other performers attended the event with even some television stars from abroad. Some 200,000 people participated in Tel Aviv's gay pride parade at the beginning of June, including some 35,000 tourists.
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There is lots of homophobia and there aren't funds or much motivation for education and change."
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Hadar, a participant in the event, said that "they try to paint a rosy picture that Israel is a receptive place and accepts the other, and they use the march in Tel Aviv to this end, but there are a lot of sinkholes for the community in the periphery. It's time that we are acknowledged, that the trans in Ashdod and the pansexuals in Hadera are acknowledged together with the gays in Tel Aviv and the lesbians in Ramat Gan." "Either way, together and united, we fight for recognition. "The bi-pan-poly community often has to remind community members, especially those in Tel Aviv, that we exist," said Nodelman. Marchers in Ashdod's gay pride parade on Friday, June 17, 2016.