ROOKE: Teacher Accidentally Seems To Make Best Case For Why Public Schools Are Failing Students

A Washington state school teacher inadvertently handed conservatives the single clearest example imaginable of why public education is failing, according to recently reported allegations.

A non-binary school teacher in Tumwater, WA, named Mx. TJ Thornton, allegedly pushed back against teaching a 10-year-old boy for the fifth grade school year because his father, school board member Casey Taylor, had voted months earlier to keep girls’ sports biologically female, according to Alesha Perkins’ Substack.

Thornton goes by they/them pronouns, but if I were a betting woman, I would assume that she is a progressive white female because this is the only way this story makes any sense. Despite Taylor’s views on protecting girls’ sports being a common-sense position supported by roughly 70–80% of Americans in every major poll, Thornton claimed there were “safety concerns” over the family’s supposed views on transgender issues and allegedly went to the school’s administration with those concerns, according to an investigator’s Sept. 24, 2025, report cited by Perkins.

While the investigator reportedly concluded the allegations against Thorton were “unsubstantiated,” Taylor filed a complaint with HR and the superintendent on Nov. 30, according to Perkins.

A taxpayer-funded teacher decided that a fourth-grader’s presence resulted in an unsafe environment, which would have been understandable had the child ever threatened or physically assaulted anyone. Instead, Thornton allegedly politicized a 10-year-old and punished him because the child’s father holds mainstream views. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)

I almost can’t believe I’m typing this. A 5th grade gender-nonbinary teacher in Tumwater, WA, did not want to teach the 10-year-old son of a conservative school board member, citing safety concerns. Mx. TJ Thornton requested the school craft a policy to “help mitigate the… pic.twitter.com/1ut6uS8AYX

— Brandi Kruse (@BrandiKruse) December 8, 2025

The job description is simple: teach reading, writing, math, and science. At no point is it acceptable for teachers to screen students for ideological purity. Still, this is what happens when schools become radical left-wing re-education camps. The left spent years telling us that inclusion means celebrating every identity. Apparently, that promise expires the moment a parent defends girls’ sports, traditional pronouns, or any other view now labeled harmful. (ROOKE: Beloved Childhood Classic Getting Liberal Makeover — And It’s Worse Than You’d Expect)

The same system that puts up “All Are Welcome Here” signs is perfectly comfortable telling a little boy that he isn’t welcome because of his father’s political beliefs. It’s a good thing his parents removed him from this school. It is clear he wasn’t safe in their care.

Thorton’s alleged treatment of this boy and his family is precisely the reason public schools have lost the trust of over half the country. When a teacher can weaponize vague “safety concerns” to reject a student whose family disagrees with the latest radical left orthodoxy, parents understandably conclude that the institution no longer serves their children’s best interests.

This alleged incident is further evidence for why alternative educational institutions are exploding in red and purple states. Families are voting with their feet because they no longer believe the public system can treat their kids fairly.

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