A third-grade HISD teacher accused of making profane and anti-Muslim remarks on a public access television show will resign immediately and receive three months’ pay under a deal approved by the school board Thursday.

Angela Box, a teacher at Daily Elementary in west Houston, had remained in the classroom since controversy over her comments surfaced in mid-November. Her annual salary is $50,100.

Box has taught in HISD since July 2013 and previously taught in Spring Branch ISD. She was a regular guest on the conservative political show “Tommy’s Garage.”

Trustees of the Houston Independent School District did not discuss the settlement publicly before their 6-0 vote to approve the deal.

In a statement Thursday, Box said she would miss her students and treasure the time she spent with them. She said “character assassination” by community activist Quanell X, who had accused Box of using a racial slur, made it impossible for her to remain in her job.

“As I have said before, opposing President Obama and sounding the alarm about radical Islam does not make me a racist,” the statement said, adding that she did not utter the racial epithets Quanell X had attributed to her.

“I am considering all my legal options regarding the conduct from Mr. X and others. I expect to have an announcement as early as next Monday regarding my future steps.”

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The City Council denied a request by Muslim residents to use space in a retail shopping center as a prayer center by a 4-1 vote Monday night, with Councilwoman Cris Eaton-Welsh voting in favor.

Doug Dillard, the attorney representing the applicant, Suffa Dawat Center at Kennesaw, said the council’s denial was a blatant attack on the applicant’s First Amendment rights to practice religion freely.

Dillard said the applicant, Mufti Islam, will fight back, and he has plans to bring a lawsuit against the city. “We think it’s discriminatory, and it violates equal terms,” Dillard said. “They had no reason to deny this.”

Nayyer Islam, who represents the mosque, said they will continue to fight for their right to worship in the retail center. “We’ll follow all the legal ways to continue to get the permit,” Islam said.

Eaton-Welsh said the applicant did everything he could. “I’m saddened,” Eaton-Welsh said. “The amount of anger that has come out of this was not something I ever thought Kennesaw was all about.”

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The chairman of the Big Stone County Republican Party, who took to Facebook last week to issue a “call to arms” against Muslims, has lost his day job.

Jack Whitley “brought shame” to his community and to Hardware Hank, the Ortonville store where he has worked for the past several years, his employers decided. Whitley’s Facebook posts – in which he described Muslims as “terrorists” and “parasites” and calling for someone to “frag ’em” – came as a shock to the store’s owners, Bob and Sue Kulbeik, who were even more shocked when he stood by his remarks.

“Everything Jack said was so contrary to the way my husband and I conduct our life and the way we believe and think that we just couldn’t tolerate it,” said Sue Kulbeik.

He was let go, she said, not because of any outside pressure, but because “he clearly offered no remorse” for his statements. “We even asked him, ‘Is that really how you feel?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely,'” she said. “We said, ‘You’re no longer needed at our store.'”

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