GILROY
– A recently surfaced link on a Gilroy schools-related Web site
identifies a fired teacher – who has been at the center of
controversy – as a former member of a stripping improvisational
comedy troupe.
GILROY – A recently surfaced link on a Gilroy schools-related Web site identifies a fired teacher – who has been at the center of controversy – as a former member of a stripping improvisational comedy troupe.
The link to Kristen Porter’s page on the Santa Cruz-based ScripTease Web site was posted by a Hollister resident on a “blog” maintained by Rob van Herk, information technology manager for Gilroy Unified School District. Van Herk said the site is a forum for public communication and is not associated with the district.
The question of whether Porter’s affiliation with ScripTease is relevant to her qualifications as a teacher in Gilroy has sparked an on-line discussion among community members and even a school board trustee. GUSD’s hiring and firing policies have been scrutinized since Porter was let go last month.
“It’s completely irrelevant to my teaching,” Porter said of her year-long tenure with the improv and sketch comedy troupe. “I just think it’s ridiculous, and I think it’s sad that people are trying to dig and create dirt.”
Porter said she performed with the group in 2002 and 2003 and estimates her last performance was a year ago. She was hired by GUSD to teach English at Gilroy High School starting in the fall of 2002 and was let go amid a swirl of controversy last month after questioning the school board about why she was fired.
The troupe’s slogan is “Where improv meets strip poker.” During some scenes, actors must follow certain rules and remove an item of clothing when those rules are broken. Numerous reviews of the show say that actors rarely remove all their clothing and Porter said she never has been nude in public.
A link to the site was first posted on van Herk’s blog anonymously. After van Herk removed the posting – he does not allow anonymous comments – Mike Samuels of Hollister re-posted it.
“I don’t like anonymous postings. I do the blogs to facilitate communication: One, because I like it and, two, to help out in any which way to facilitate communication,” van Herk said.
Van Herk also does not allow personal attacks on his blog, he said. The problem is, he can only edit comments after they are posted, which is one of the reasons he is considering discontinuing the blog.
“In this particular case, I think I caught the posting within two hours,” he said. “I really don’t like the comments that are made and the way they are made. But on the other hand, I feel a bit hesitant in deleting things that are people’s opinions related to the issue.”
Van Herk said his blog, or Web log, is education-related but is in no way associated with the school district. Blogs are virtual journals that can be accessed by the public, in which the author sounds off on various topics.
“I think I’m trying to make it 100 percent clear that the blog is my personal opinion, no matter what,” van Herk said. “I try to separate the two, and I try to focus on … getting the best education for all kids.”
Other recent school district-related blog topics include teacher qualifications and evaluations, which sparked responses from parents and a teachers union representative.
School Board Trustee Tom Bundros last week responded to Samuels’ posting to point out that ScripTease is a comedy show.
“I was just responding to what seemed like kind of an irresponsible posting on a public site,” Bundros said. “I thought it was misleading and it wasn’t appropriate.”
Bundros said that when school districts consider teachers’ extracurricular areas in hiring decisions, they enter a gray area.
“In this particular case, from what I know about it, I don’t think it would count for or against (Porter),” he said. “I think you have to take every situation separately and just look at the big picture.”
Superintendent Edwin Diaz did not return repeated calls for comment.
In March, GUSD decided not to re-hire Porter, who taught English at GHS for nearly two years, saying only that she was “not a good fit.” Later that month, Porter spoke out at a school board meeting, criticizing the hiring and firing of teachers at the high school and asking trustees to look into the issue. The next morning, the district made Porter’s firing immediate and she was removed from her classroom shortly before the start of the school day.
Porter said she did not know if her time with ScripTease had anything to do with why she was fired.
“I have no idea why I was not hired back in the first place,” she said, “and I have no idea why I was dismissed on the 19th.”
Her teaching record should stand on its own, Porter said, particularly her eight years as a drama teacher in Fremont, where she taught improv comedy.
“I had very, very stringent rules,” she said. “That’s one thing I was known for from staff and students alike, was how strict I was. You couldn’t even say something ‘sucked’.”
Although her biography on ScripTease’s Web site refers to nudity, Porter said it was all tongue-in-cheek.
“Nudity almost never happens,” said Johnny Davis, ScripTease co-founder. “In about seven years now, I think it’s only happened twice … It’s all just comedy. All we are is an improv comedy troupe no different from what you see on ‘Whose line is it anyway?’ ”
The Web page was disabled late Thursday afternoon.
Rob van Herk’s blog: http://vanherk.blogs.com.
