Controversal Art
Do not do controversial art for your portfolio. Most School System Administrators do not want to deal with it.
They do not understand and probably never will understand, that creativity, new, shock, controversy are so similar that I personally do not separate them.
If you must do controversial, meaning religious/political in this context, there are places outside of your community that you can show or produce it.
I think a point should be made here about the power of art.
If you do a math problem that says 1+1=3, no one really cares. They just think you are dumb. If you write that a male and female are engaged in sex. No one cares. However, If you draw/paint/photograph two people engaged in intercourse the powers that be are going to jump your case. This shows how truly powerful art is. Words and math are rinky dink in comparison. You have an extremely powerful intellectual tool. You have the tool that makes tomorrow. Not the word/math tools that merely perpetuate yesterday.
Use it wisely.