[NEWS.HJNEWS] Lincoln Elementary School art teacher Mateo Rueda had no idea what was in store for his career when he wrapped up a lesson Dec. 4 by telling students to look through some art postcards in the classroom library for examples of color usage in notable paintings.The cards, which were part of an educational package called "The Art Box" produced by Phaidon publishing, were placed in the library before Rueda began working at the Hyrum school. He knew the set portrayed a wide variety of classic artworks, but he has since said he was not aware that three or four of the 100 pieces featured in the box showed nudity.
Before the week was out, Rueda would find himself at the center of a controversy at the school, would be contacted by police after someone filed a classroom pornography complaint against him, and would eventually be out of a job.
The situation came to light Wednesday when The Herald Journal published a letter from the mother of one of Rueda’s students complaining about the art teacher’s dismissal and praising his work with students.
She also let her feelings be known on Facebook, where her posts gained wide circulation among local school parents and educators.
Cache County School District officials have declined comment on the matter, noting that this is "an ongoing personnel issue."
However,
the man who has no enemies isn't anybody and has never done anything...
one district official who asked not to be identified said that Rueda’s termination had more to do with the teacher’s interaction with students after the students noticed the nudes than it did with the actual pictures themselves.
Parent Venessa Rose Pixton said this was the nature of a complaint she lodged with the school after learning about events of that day from her 11-year-old son, who was in Rueda’s class.
"It wasn’t the pictures so much that really bothered me; it was the method in which he went about it afterward," Pixton told The Herald Journal, though contending in the same interview that she thinks the teacher shirked his responsibility by not reviewing the pictures thoroughly before allowing children to access them.
"My son felt that Mr. Mateo belittled them," Pixton said. "He said Mr. Mateo even told the class ’There’s nothing wrong with female nipples. You guys need to grow up and be mature about this.’"
Rueda flatly denies he said this or took such a tone.
"No, that did not happen," he said this week. "I did say that when you grow up, you’re going to find yourselves going to museums or to places where unavoidably there’s going to be nudity."
Parent Kamee Jensen, who wrote the letter to the editor defending Rueda, said neither the pictures nor the teacher’s comments upset her daughter.
"The school sent out an email to parents asking if children were upset by what happened in class. I asked my daughter if she ever felt uncomfortable, and she said no. She was just very upset that her teacher was in trouble," Jensen said.