A Shenendehowa student's controversial art project depicting President Trump has caught the attention of some district parents and at least one national news organization. Matt Hunter reports.
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. – Erica McGowan says she was so disturbed by a photo her son showed her last month of a fellow Shenendehowa High School student's artwork depicting President Donald Trump that she shared it with local conservative groups -- and Fox News Channel, which published an article online.
"If it had been Obama up there or Hillary [Clinton], and they had been defaced, I would have been just as upset,” said McGowan, whose son is a sophomore. "I never expected all of this. I just wanted the issue to be out there to show that this happens at school."
"They started writing inappropriate things on the pictures of the president, such as for him to burn in hell,” said Sal Corcione-Partak, McGowan’s son.
With the image generating many clicks and comments, Principal Donald Flynt confirmed Tuesday the piece was briefly displayed during an after-school, student-run art show on May 25.
"Obviously, it creates an emotional reaction from people,” Flynt said. "I am concerned that Fox News did not speak to me, even though I reached out to the person who wrote the article."
Flynt says the artist encouraged her classmates to write their feelings about the president on the image.
"I was immediately offended by it and took it down, confiscated it," said Flynt, who said the students faced no disciplinary action beyond his initial conversation with them.
Flynt says the project was in no way guided by faculty, but McGowan and her son believe it follows a pattern of what they call anti-conservative bias at the school. Sal claims he's been told to remove his pro-Trump "Make America Great Again" shirt and hat.
"I have been told by the monitors in the hallways, my bus driver, to take it off because it is considered hate speech," Corcione-Partak said.
"You are basically treated like you are the outsider. You are not the norm," McGowan said.
Claims about political bias of any kind are ones school leaders disagree with.
"We are not trying to project any type of political commentary on kids that wouldn't typically come up in any ordinary conversation with kids,” Flynt said. “We do not try to do that because we know that is not a good thing to do."