Joe McGinnis, principal of Jackson High School, is caught in the conflict between community values, parents' rights, teacher speech, public health policy, and his own positioning within the community and faculty. He must decide whether and how to discipline a teacher and former mentor who, in the absence of a clear school district policy, supplied a student with information regarding sexual health. The parents claim the teacher exceeded her duties by providing morality education that contradicted parental and community values. The teacher asserts she acted in the best interest of the student's health and academic future. This case poses questions about professional ethics and morality, community governance and school health education policies, school human resource rules, and school power. Keywords sex education policy, education leadership, human resources Case SettingJackson High School is the only high school located in a rural school district and is composed of approximately 650 students. The socially conservative community is made up of a high number of church-going families. However, a developer has Dolder-Holland et al. 25constructed new neighborhoods in the school district, and rural Jackson is transitioning into a suburb for professional families from Grove City. With that growth has come increased diversity of community members' political, religious, and social affiliations and belief systems.Jackson's school board adopted an "abstinence only" sex education program within the health curriculum to reflect the community's wishes and federal policies. However, in the past 10 years, Jackson has had a slow increase in the number of unintended teen pregnancies. Given the limited resources in the area, the girls who have become pregnant have attended Jackson until giving birth, but very few have continued their schooling after becoming mothers. There has been relatively little impact on the young men involved in the pregnancies. Some in Jackson's diversifying population have voiced concern about the rise of teen pregnancy and have suggested revision of the "abstinence only" program. However, those individuals are still in the minority, and the established Jackson community tends to dismiss the concerns. Instead, most Jackson residents avoid this contentious education issue by focusing on school improvement efforts and raising test scores. To these residents, sex just isn't something to be discussed in their own school experiences-at least not in the classroom. And many parents trusted the school counselor, Rhonda Louis, to discuss this delicate subject.Ms. Louis felt good about guiding students toward abstinence. Not only was it a popular position with parents in their community and with school administration, but over her long tenure at the school, she had seen the challenges experienced by girls who became pregnant in high school. Ms. Louis had worked with several girls who felt shamed, who dropped out, and who fell far short of their career and personal potential due to the interruption of a teen pregnancy....