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On August 29th, this publication released publicly available information about Dr. Shane Murnan, a newly hired, head principal at John Glenn Elementary School within the Western Heights Public School district in Oklahoma. Principal Murnan, a 52-year-old man who spends much of his free time as drag queen Shantel Mandalay, was previously arrested for possessing child pornography.
The article went viral garnering thousands of comments from outraged parents asking how Murnan’s hiring could’ve been approved. Much has been learned since then about an additional hire of concern at John Glenn ES, the strategic workings of an unscrupulous public education and legacy media connection desperate to protect the drag queen principal, the true level of activist infiltration within the local education system and a plan to prevent the parents of John Glenn ES students from being heard concerning Murnan’s hiring at the district’s upcoming board meeting (September 11th).
A Sign of Dark Times: Western Heights Defends Drag Queen Principal, Then Goes Political
Numerous national publications have covered the defensive response of Western Heights superintendent Brayden Savage in publicly explaining Murnan’s hiring (our favorite is from American Thinker). Within the official Western Heights statement on the matter, first released on the district’s Facebook page with comments hidden, parents were assured the district followed its “usual hiring practices” and praises flowed for Murnan as “highly recommended” with an “outstanding reputation” and a PhD.
Superintendent Brayden Savage goes on to confirm the district was fully aware of Murnan’s previous arrest before hiring him, though never actually mentioning ‘child porn’ and brushing the charges off as “dismissed more than 20 years ago”. Murnan was a 30-year-old elementary school teacher when he was arrested, not a foolish spring breaker. He voluntarily resigned from his teaching position despite being on a suspended-with-pay status.
Savage also avoided any mention of a more current investigation concerning Murnan (2020), his alter ego Shantel Mandalay or his campaign to bring drag queen story hour to the masses.
Savage then pivoted to lay soft blame on the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) and current State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters (R) for renewing Murnan’s teaching certificate in April of 2023. Murnan’s teaching certificate had been renewed multiple times prior to Walter’s election.
For some political context, Walters may be the first truly conservative State Superintendent Oklahoma has ever had, and public education is bashing him on all fronts as he makes efforts to address school failures that have perpetuated for generations, particularly in the state’s more urban areas.
Walters released a video assuring Murnan’s hiring as a school administrator did not reflect Oklahoma values, further stating, “We know that radical gender theory has been a direct assault on our kids and we can’t allow this in our schools…. This is the liberal insanity that every parent wants out of the classroom.”
Also in her statement, Savage claimed parents were fully informed at the time of Murnan’s hiring by the following Facebook post from the district, oddly translated from English to English in an overwhelmingly Spanish speaking neighborhood. The only Spanish stated “Welcome to WH”.
Again, there’s no mention of child porn, drag queens or gender fluid story hour. For those not fluent in public ed speak, here’s an accurate translation of Savage’s post: The district knew all about Murnan and hired him as principal anyway.
Could it be that the lawyer in the room during the district board’s behind-closed-doors ‘execute session’ immediately preceding Murnan’s hire devised the strategy of getting ahead of liability and parental opinions by posting a one-line disclosure that no one would likely ever read? This is the ‘family engagement’ public education so often brags about as a top priority.
For the time being, it looks like Western Heights is circling the wagons around Muran, though considerable attention has come to bear upon the district. Like those in many other states, Oklahoma parents find themselves in an ideological custody battle with public education.
John Glenn Elementary Hires Another Drag Queen for the Kindergarten Classroom
Publicly available on Facebook page of Carmen Deveraux.
The V1SUT Vantage recently learned that yet another drag queen, stage name Carmen Deveraux, is now working for head principal Shane Murnan (Shantel Mandalay) as a kindergarten classroom para-professional at John Glenn ES. Paul Caplan Stafford (33), the adult male behind Deveraux’s makeup, was approved for hire by the Western Heights school board on July 25, 2023, one of Murnan’s first recommended hires as the school’s highest ranking administrator.
An entire page is missing from the district’s online meeting minutes that evening, but it’s clear the board again entered ‘executive session’ to discuss Stafford’s block of new hire candidates outside of public view. No notes from the executive session are publicly available.
This time, two of the five board members (Jerome Johnson and Brianna Flatley) abstained from voting on Stafford’s group of new hires, but three others (Darrin Dunkin, Brayden Hunt and Teresa Lewis) approved all listed candidates. Johnson and Flatley both voted in favor of hiring Murnan a month earlier but appear to have developed some reservations about the district’s hiring practices. Jerome has not responded to this publication’s request for comment.
Drag queen Carmen Deveraux, publicly available on Facebook.
As a para-professional, Stafford is not required to have a teaching certificate but works directly with children in the classroom. Drag and education insiders, including Murnan as Shantel Mandalay, celebrated the new hire of Carmen Deveraux (not Paul Stafford), leaving no doubt about who’s really coming to work with 5-year-olds. Only parents, once again, were the uninformed parties.
How a Drag Bar Took Over an Oklahoma Elementary School
John Glenn ES principal Shane Murnan (left) and Kindergarten aide Paul Stafford at The Boom. Publicly available at Facebook page of Shantel Mandalay.
Principal Murnan and his Kindergarten aide Stafford have a long established working relationship within their gay pageant lives, their work at The Boom gay bar and theatre, and at their last elementary school positions. Stafford was also a para-professional at Prairie Queen ES within the Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) district under Murnan’s supervision as assistant vice principal.
Back at Prairie Queen ES, events unfolded that provide some answers to the question thousands of readers have expressed over the past week. How did this happen? Once Murnan became assistant vice principal at Prairie Queen, he began hiring his friends, qualified or otherwise. Then he gave them awards or promotions to help build their credentials within public education. Murnan’s ideological soulmates had a habit of becoming instructional coaches (teacher trainers and developers) at Prairie Queen. And wouldn’t you know it, out of 41 support staff working at the school during the 2022-23 school year, Carmen Deveraux was tops, winning “Support Staff of the Year”. The likeminded thrived and were rewarded.
Right photo: (from left) Tiffany Tuggle, Joshua T. McGowen, Shane Murnan, Paul Stafford. Publicly available on Facebook page of Tuggle.
The Facebook post above giving congratulations to Stafford’s drag name for the elementary school award was posted by Tiffany Tuggle, and all parties depicted standing in the school’s gym have direct ties to the gay bar The Boom. Tuggle is an elementary school teacher and instructional coach at Prairie Queen who also played Janet Weiss in the Boom’s recent production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Publicly available at Facebook page of Tiffany Tuggle.
Joshua T. McGowen, also known as drag queen Vera Ball, is the artistic director at the Boom. McGowen played Frank-N-Furter and Stafford played Riff-Raff to Tuggle’s Weiss in the gay bar version of Rocky Horror.
Joshua McGowen (center) and Paul Stafford (right) in The Boom’s adaptation of Rocky Horror.
Vera Ball (Joshua McGowen) and Carmen Deveraux (Paul Stafford) are a drag couple.
Publicly available on Facebook page of Joshua T. McGowen.
And principal Shantel Mandalay (Shane Murnan) is the Grand Dame over all at both John Glenn Elementary School and The Boom gay bar.
Publicly available at Facebook page of Shantel Mandalay.
And now, Murnan has exited OKCPS for a promotion to head principal, taking Stafford and others with him to John Glenn ES in the Western Heights district, which appears to be even more drag friendly. This bizarre partnership between the drag community and public education, with the help of some local non-profits, is now working feverishly to prevent John Glenn parents from expressing their views about the drag queen principal at the district’s next school board meeting.
Calling All Activists to Keep Parents Away From Public Education Decisions
It appears public education and gender fluid activists have welded themselves together within a hermetically sealed ideological vacuum that allows no room for either parents or their opinions.
With the release of our first article, Kily Keeling, now an instructional coach at John Glenn ES, quickly pushed out a call for her friends at OKC Pride, Inc. to fill the slots for public comment with supporters of her boss Shane Murnan at the upcoming, September 11th district board meeting. Keeling included the official district logo in the post, as though she was approved by the school board to make such public statement.
OKC Pride is a gay advocacy group and host of the Pride on 39th parade, having nothing to do with the operation of K-12 schools. Just below Keeling’s call to action about the Western Heights school board meeting, where presumably few at OKC Pride have children attending, you can find out where the next gay pub crawl, drag show or gay rodeo finals are being held. In response to the post, OKC Pride posted a statement condemning state superintendent Walters and claiming drag as a First Amendment right. Teacher Keeling clearly believes this outside group has the right to crowd the parents of John Glenn ES students out of the conversation concerning their own children’s education and safety.
Next, Tiffany Tuggle, another Murnan teacher/instructional coach and drag bar performer, taps the 63,000 followers of Oklahoma Edvocates with an emotional plea to help Muran at Monday’s meeting and forwarding Keeling’s previous message to OKC Pride.
Oklahoma Edvocates states its purpose “is to unite educators, parents, and advocates for education in the state of Oklahoma, so we can come together and educate, collaborate, and discuss what options we have moving forward to improve Public Education.” The group’s beginning was far less noble and judging by Tuggle’s use of the site as an activist rallying cry, it doesn’t look like things have changed much.
This publication previously covered Oklahoma Edvocates’ sordid founding by now convicted pedophile/teacher Alberto Morejon, also from Stillwater PS where Shane Murnan was arrested for child porn and drug possession:
Stillwater Junior High teacher Alberto Morejon, a public leader and social media organizer of the 2018 teacher walkout, was arrested and convicted of sexting with a student, avoiding conviction on a separate charge of forcible oral sodomy through a plea bargain. Morejon, a junior high history teacher from Stillwater, formed the Oklahoma Edvocates Facebook page as the face of the walkout, with over 61,000 teacher followers and rules like “Be Respectful” and “No Hate Speech”. It was hard to take for parents and further eroded the trust between schools and families.
Defying Public Outrage: Legacy Media Works Overtime to Defend Drag Principal
In a pattern that holds true across America, the local, legacy media stayed true to its strategy for combatting anything factual that suggests someone outside of heterosexuality might not be a pillar of virtue. For two days following the release of the first article, as Murnan’s drag photos and arrest record were viewed millions of times and outrage was overwhelmingly expressed, the local and national television affiliates stayed suspiciously silent. In what has come to feel almost like a predictable religious ritual, on the third day, one local television affiliate stepped up with a thoroughly incomplete defense of both Murnan and the district’s decision to hire him as an elementary school principal.
Reporter Tom Ferguson of Oklahoma City’s Fox 25 (KOKH) was of the first to fall on the progressive sword. Ferguson considers himself an investigative journalist though his bio states he “double-majored in art history and classics with a Latin concentration and minored in French”. Ferguson’s dutiful piece stressed Murnan’s porn charge was “two decades ago”, strategically failing to mention Murnan was a well known drag queen and leader of the state’s drag queen story hour movement with an additional criminal probable cause filing against him in 2020. Two other local affiliates have yet to touch the story. From there, the previously quiet national news took Ferguson’s folly and ran, beginning with MSN who ran Ferguson’s story verbatim, because that’s how it works.
Oklahomans already know that local television affiliates are only useful when a tornado is tracking directly at them. Otherwise, like elsewhere, it’s best to avoid mainstream media at all cost. And all rational people agree that parents should determine who is allowed to spend seven hours a day with their children.
For parents of Western Height PS students, you too can request to speak at the district’s upcoming school board meeting:
Para hablar en la reunión, envíe un correo electrónico a la secretaria de la junta Latoya Johnson al (latoya.johnson@westernheights.k12.ok.us) o llame a la oficina del distrito al (405) 350-3410.
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