Auburn middle school teacher resigns after parents raise concerns about podcast on queer advice (2024)

A music teacher at J.F. Drake Middle School resigned on Wednesday after multiple parents publicly expressed concerns about a classroom assignment and podcast centered on queer advice.

The City of Auburn Board of Education voted to acceptSeth McCollough's resignation in a special called meeting. When the Opelika-Auburn News inquired about the resignation, the school board saidAuburn City Schools doesn't comment on personnel matters.

McColloughis the president of Pride on The Plains. They raise awareness and advocates for AIDS Outreach Alabama, LGBTQ+ homeless youth and more.

The Opelika-Auburn News made multiple attempts on Wednesday and Thursday to reach McCullough for comment, but those attempts were not successful.

The resignation came a day after three parents of students at Auburn City Schools approached the school board at Tuesday's meeting about a teacher with a "queer podcast."The parents didn't name said teacher, but stated that they communicated with their students about theirsexuality.

Podcast, class assignment spark outrage

Brooke Bacak, a parent of a rising seventh grader, said he came across the podcast after he learned of a“troubling” assignment that ended with her son being removed from a class.On Auburn University's website, Bacak is listed as anadjunct professor who teaches public relations in political processes.

“The assignment requires a small group of boys to choreograph and perform a dance to the song 'Single Ladies’ while being filmed and graded,” she said. “The song was chosen from other options that also had inappropriate lyrics about adult relationships and drinking.”

Bacak said she was curious about the teacher so she searched Google for answers and found the teacher’s 2021 podcast offering “queer advice and answering the questions you can’t ask your parents.”

Bacak said that in the podcast they introduced themselves as a teacher and enabled open conversations they couldn’t have at school. She said the teacher also shared their personal email.

“No child should have been in the situation and no parent should have to work so hard to convince the adults in charge that this is a problem,” she said.

In a 2021 episode ofMcCollough's podcast "Bleu Dreams," McCollough said they want to be for the "young, queer youth of today what I needed when I was their age: an out, unapologetically proud, queer role model.”

“And you might say, ‘But why this podcast? If you can help the youth, why not do it at school?' Well, you see, I have students ask me all the time, ‘How did you know you were gay?’...And I feel like I can't have those conversations at school because my hands are tied,” McCollough said in the podcast episode.

In the episode, McCollough also said they felt that they could help whoever with whatever advice needed through their podcast. They said they were afraid to ask those questions, because they felt like it would come back to their parents.

Parents ask board to put their kids' 'best interests' first

Rachel White, a concerned parent, said she attended Tuesday's meeting, because the school system “has a taxpayer-funded Auburn City School teacher who has openly admitted to having conversations with prepubescent children concerning sexual identity.” She mentioned that the teacher, who she didn't name at the meeting, has done other things parents were concerned about.

White said the teacher encouraged individuals to “F your mother’s feelings and be you and to cut toxic people out of your lives.”

White said that they had not gotten any explanation about whether the dancing assignment had any educational value.

“Any reasonable, sane human knows that this behavior is unacceptable,” she said.

Jerry White, Rachel’s husband, asked the board if they could fully grasp what is occurring currently at the middle school.

“You have an employee who said and predicted that he will be terminated when the wrong parent figures out what he’s doing,” Jerry said.

Jerry said that the teacher feared the parents more than the superintendent, the board and the city leaders. He said he thinks the board isn’t going to do what he described as the right thing.

“You’ve known about this individual. You’ve known about this disturbing behavior. It’s not okay,” he said. “... I think this body cares more about protecting the reputation of the school system than the people and kids in it.”

Jerry talked about how maybe the board will prove him wrong, because he knows they’re all active in their churches. He said he knows they all have children and they're what he described as upstanding members of the Auburn community.

He said the school board being unelected is part of the problem.

“All the parents had no direct accountability mechanism because you’re unelected,” he said. “We don’t have to know anything about what you think about curriculum, what you think about policy, what you think about personnel, but that’s all about to change.”

Jerry told the board that they would have to make a very public choice, and asked them if they were going to put the best interests of their kids first or are they going to put the teacher first.