Oklahoma school board defends elementary school principal over drag queen side-gig, previous child porn charges

A school board in Oklahoma is defending an elementary school principal who moonlights as a drag queen and faced child pornography charges 20 years ago.

The details of the child pornography case, as reported by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA), raises disturbing questions about the principal’s fitness to run an elementary school and why Western Heights Public Schools hired him this year.

Multiple community members, parents and colleagues of John Glenn Elementary principal Shane Murnan spoke in support of the principal during the public comment portion of the meeting, according to The Oklahoman.

At least with teachers, Murnan, who performs as a drag queen under the name “Shantel Mandalay,” remains popular. 

“Teachers come to work smiling,” Kily Keeling said about Murnan in public comments, reported The Oklahoman. “Students are happy. They are loved. They are cared for. They are supported, but most importantly because of his consistency, his visibility and his willingness to allow mistakes for the sake of growth, we are now thriving and our students are learning.” 

Previously, the Western Heights Board of Education (WHBOE) issued a statement via Facebook in support of Murnan’s hiring.  

“Recently, the district has been made aware of previous charges that were dismissed more than 20 years ago,” the WHBOE said in a June 12 statement about the decision to hire Murnan.  

But the state’s top school chief was having none of it.  

“I’ve heard from parents all over the state: this person has got to go,” said Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s superintendent of schools, in a statement about Murnan’s fitness for the top job at John Glenn Elementary, according to local KOCO News. 

A person who attended the public comment portion of the WHBOE meeting agreed with Walter’s assessment. 

“Let’s not pretend like there’s nothing that people should be concerned about,” one person said, according to local Fox 25 News. “That’s a falsehood. We should be concerned he’s been charged even though they’ve [the charges] been dismissed.” 

Indeed, the details that were reported by the local newspaper, Tulsa World, in 2001 when Murnan was arrested, leave questions as to why the WHBOE decided to hire him as a principal.  

A police affidavit signed by an informant said that Murnan’s home computer contained “12 photos of a boy performing sexual acts with an adult male,” reported Tulsa World at that time.  

OCPA said that the charges were eventually dismissed by the judge for lack of evidence, after Murnan’s attorney argued “the state had not proven that the pictures were of underage males and argued the pictures could have been computer generated. The defense also argued that since the images had been deleted on Murnan’s computer, he did not have possession of pornography.”  

Deleted pictures, however, would presuppose, and be an admission, that those photos were at one point in Murnan’s possession, regardless of how the judge ruled.  

Another police informant, a parent at an elementary school where Murnan was then teaching, recounted an incident in May 2000 where Murnan allegedly commented as two 10-year old boys were dressing that one was “going to be so fine when he grows up,” and “he’s going to be hot,” said the Tulsa World report. 

OCPA reports that earlier this year, Oklahoma’s Woodward Public Schools was forced to fire an athletic coach, after it was revealed he pled no contest to sexual battery against a 15-year-old girl in the 1990s.  

OCPA said the Woodward school district admitted publicly that the firing resulted “from the continual social media and community objections to the events from the 1990s,” and not from some realization that they made mistake in hiring.