The Tully Central School District is facing controversy after a student claimed he was censored in the district's monthly newsletter.

What began as a special highlight quickly turned into a frustrating setback.

Tyler Johnson, a senior at Tully High School, was asked to be featured in the newsletter as a recognition of all of his hard work.

He filled out a questionnaire that asked him to write about a challenge he’s had to overcome.

“I answered that with my biggest challenge was growing up gay, and having to navigate through bullying, and navigate through life, and navigate through all the negative experiences I had,” said Johnson.

After submitting his answers, he said his high school principal asked him remove that one answer — forcing him to face a similar challenge all over again.

“It kind of made me feel like the progress that I’ve made over the past two-and-a-half years since I’ve come out was being completely stripped away from me, and they were kind of throwing me back into that place that I was in before and invalidating my experience,” said Johnson.

Turning to social media, Tyler made a video on TikTok describing the situation, and it quickly caught wave and gained more than 10,000 views overnight.

Soon after, Superintendent Robert Hughes sent out a letter to the community stating it was his decision to remove Tyler’s answer about coming out, and that it was to avoid controversy. He said after seeing Tyler’s video, he changed his mind and will include his original answers in the newsletter.

It's a story all too familiar for behavioral specialist Kyle Taranto, who was hired to work at the elementary school last year.

“We were asked to write staff bios for the school newspaper and to follow the rubric of everyone years before. In each bio, people mention their family members at the last part of the paragraph, so I had written that I live with my husband in Syracuse,” said Taranto.

He said he was told the line about him having a husband couldn’t be printed.

When Kyle expressed his concerns about excluding that information, the school decided to include his original statement.

“It was my biggest fear that this would happen to a student. I feel like I was very naive when I thought that things were okay,” said Taranto.

After what happened to Tyler, Taranto said he put in his resignation and will no longer be working at Tully Central Schools.

On Monday night, the superintendent held an emergency school board meeting to address the situation. Hughes said he wants to move forward and create a supportive culture for LGBTQIA+ students.

Many members of the Tully community are now calling for the superintendent and high school principal’s resignation and created a petition online.

The community plans to show support for Tyler and speak about the situation at the public school board meeting that is being held at 6 p.m. on Jan. 24 at Tully High School.