The assistant principal at a Mississippi elementary school was fired last week after he read the children's book "I Need a New Butt!" to a second-grade class -- a move he plans to appeal.
Toby Price, who worked at Gary Road Elementary School in Byram, a suburb in metropolitan Jackson, said he was asked to set up a Zoom class for the kids, and later asked to read them a book.
"I text my boss, she said, 'Well, go ahead and read.' I wasn't planning on reading, but I went ahead and grabbed one of my books that I had nearby. One of my favorites. I read it: 'I Need a New Butt!' It's hilarious," he said in a phone call with NBC News Wednesday.
Price, who was assistant principal at Gary Road for three years, said he used to read the book at his previous school and didn't think twice about sharing it with the second-graders. "I never had an issue with it," he said. "It's just a fun, silly book."
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The school took issue with it, telling Price that it was inappropriate because it used words like "butt" and "fart" and included cartoon images of a child's butt. NBC affiliate WLBT of Jackson reported that the superintendent of the Hinds County School District wrote in Price's termination letter that he showed "a lack of professionalism and impaired judgment" when he picked the book. For those reasons, he was fired.
The school district could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
Price said that the school's reaction was unwarranted and that silly books should be allowed, to encourage further reading.
