By Staff Reporter |

A North Valley elementary school increased the number of Pride posters in its hallways after parents complained about a lesson in which students were taught to play a song about dancing at a gay bar.

As the Arizona Daily Independent (ADI) reported, parents learned after the fact about a recent lesson in a music class at Desert Trails Elementary in which students were directed to play boomwhackers to “Pink Pony Club,” a charting pop song about transitioning to an LGBTQ+ lifestyle and dancing at a gay bar.

The song is by lesbian starlet Chappell Roan, who gained popularity in 2024 from another hit single about her sexuality, “Good Luck, Babe!” Roan, who dresses in the style of drag queens, is widely viewed as an LGBTQ+ icon and advocate. 

According to reports and social media chatter, parents were not offered an opt-out or even made aware of the lesson beforehand. According to the ADI, the Paradise Valley Unified School District cleared the teacher to resume classes this week on the promise that he would abide by parental notification requirements in the future. 

The educator who implemented the lesson was hired earlier this summer: Jerry Michael Nanney, who goes by Michael Nanney. 

Nanney claimed to the school and parents that he didn’t know the context of the song. 

“Pink Pony Club” discusses a woman’s desire to leave behind her religious upbringing in the South and join the progressive community out West. The lyrics of the song define identity through sexuality.

In the song, Roan narrates the horror of the woman’s mother “scream[ing]” as “she sees her baby girl” dancing at a club. The woman in the song explains to her horrified mother that she’s “just having fun.” 

“And I heard that there’s a special place / Where boys and girls can be queens every single day,” states the song lyrics. “I’m up and jaws are on the floor / Lovers in the bathroom and a line outside the door / Blacklights and mirrored disco ball / Every night’s another reason why I left it all / I thank my wicked dreams.”

As noted elsewhere in other reports and online, “pink pony” has multiple meanings. The term can refer to sex, as well as male genitalia. 

The artist, Roan, disclosed the pink and some of the narration for the fictitious club were inspired by a hometown strip club, and the atmosphere and content within the song were inspired by her first visit to a gay bar in California.

All of this information, along with the music video for the song in which Roan, drag queens, and gay men dance suggestively, is available and easily accessible online. 

Sleuthing parents and community members with Scottsdale Unites for Educational Integrity uncovered social media activity by Nanney that undermined his claim that he didn’t know the meaning of the song. Online, Nanney had shared posts by accounts dedicated to drag queen news and culture. 

Reports uncovered, further, that Nanney leads the choir for an LGBTQ+-friendly church in Sun City.

These discoveries make Nanney’s claim of no knowledge of the song unlikely. 

Nanney also reported obtaining the song as a choice from a list made by other educators who, the district would later confirm, were not within PVUSD. 

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