School district officials have suspended a high school journalism teacher two months after the student newspaper published a sophomore's editorial advocating tolerance for gays.

Woodlan Junior-Senior High School teacher Amy Sorrell said she was told Monday she had been placed on paid leave while school district officials review whether her contract should be terminated.

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After the editorial ran in the Woodlan Tomahawk's Jan. 19 issue, school district officials told Sorrell and the newspaper's staff that Principal Ed Yoder would need to approve all content before future issues were printed. Yoder also gave Sorrell a written warning for insubordination and failing to carry out her responsibilities as a teacher.

[Sorrell] said students were now studying court cases related to freedom of the press instead of working on a new edition of the paper for the 700-student school about 10 miles east of Fort Wayne.

WOODBURN, Ind. -- A high school journalism teacher will fight administrators' efforts to fire her over a conflict that began when the student newspaper published an editorial advocating tolerance for homosexuals.

Teacher Amy Sorrell received a letter Thursday saying that the East Allen County School Board would consider firing her for insubordination and other misconduct when it meets May 1.

The letter accused Sorrell of failing to follow directives from Woodlan Junior-Senior High School Principal Ed Yoder regarding the school newspaper, altering the newspaper class curriculum and engaging in a campaign to falsely portray the district and Yoder as intolerant.

Yesterday, Friday, the school board informed the teacher that a decision had been reached that her contract would be terminated. Over the past two weeks, the school board labored to construct an elaborate document of grievances against the teacher to divert the world from the simple fact that an American taxpayer-funded public high school was firing a teacher for allowing her students to question bigotry.

So what' s the real story here? The news that really matters to us? And what have we taught our students?

1. Christian fundamentalist views take precedence over constitutional law.

2. Bigotry is honorable and moral when it is done in the name of Jesus.

3. Homophobia and intolerance against gay children is condoned and supported by the school administration.

4. If you're a gay student, please understand that the school authorities support gay bashing and marginalization. In fact the people who control your daily lives and your education believe you to be immoral and unacceptable as a human being.

5. Students with non-fundamentalist Christian views are not free to express their opinions.

6. Teachers with views and opinions that differ from local school officials will be fired, because school officials are not subject to mundane laws like the First Amendment.

7. Klan meetings can now be held in the Woodburn, Indiana High School Gymnasium during school hours.

A teacher at Woodlan-Junior Senior High School in Allen County who was suspended in March after a column appeared in the school newspaper calling for tolerance toward gays, has accepted a settlement with the school district.

Amy Sorrell, 30, said the agreement was to be finalized this afternoon. It calls for her to be transferred to another high school where she will teach English. The agreement bars her from teaching journalism for three years.

The agreement she signed includes a written reprimand that says she neglected her duties as a teacher and was insubordinate in refusing to obey school officials' orders.

Sorrell said she is "very proud" of Megan Chase, the student who wrote the editorial calling for tolerance and acceptance of gays, and the Tomahawk's other writers and editors. But she said she could not financially afford to fight the school district over her discipline.

She also now has been honored with the Mary Beth Tinker Prize, given to her this week by American University's law school and the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project. The award is named for the student in the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case that codified First Amendment rights for public school pupils.

English class assignments, not journalistic pieces, will fill the pages of Woodlan Junior-Senior High School’s newspaper this year, ending a battle between administrators and the student staff that started over an editorial advocating tolerance for gay people.

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Now, with a fresh school year underway, Woodlan has a new system for student participation on its newspaper and yearbook staffs, both formerly advised by Sorrell. The yearbook will operate as an extracurricular activity meeting before or after school, and the newspaper will rely on submissions from English classes.

English teachers will have students respond to a given topic using various styles of writing, including persuasion, opinion and perspective pieces, said Jan MacLean, deputy superintendent at East Allen Country Schools. The teachers will select the best articles and ask their authors for permission to publish the pieces.

“I’m really not sure exactly what the kids will be writing about or what the English teachers have in mind,” MacLean said. “There will be some department discussions about what kinds of pieces would be appropriate. My guess is that students will be including pieces that are newsworthy.”

Cortney Carpenter, The Tomahawk’s editor last year, said she does not want anything she writes for English class printed in the newspaper.

“It really wouldn’t be a paper anymore,” she said.