School leaders are used to toiling in obscurity, unlikely to draw large crowds even when they try to. But waves of controversial decisions have provoked examples of disciplinary actions against people who bring unwanted attention to a district.
Pennsylvania
For one example, we can turn to rural northwestern Pennsylvania. The Penncrest School District, which has been working to get reading restrictions in place for its students. The district had previously expressed its objections to critical race theory, and in 2021, the board sought to impose reading restrictions.
The language, modeled after similar controversial book restrictions in Bucks County (apparently co-written by an attorney from the Independence Law Center, the legal arm of the far right Pennsylvania Family Institute) was somewhat neutral, but board member comments on social media were not. Commenting on Facebook about a picture of a Pride month book display in the high school library, a member commented:
Besides the point of being totally evil, this is not what we need to be teaching kids. They aren’t at school to be brainwashed into thinking homosexuality is okay. Its [sic] actually being promoted to the point where it’s even ‘cool’.
Member David Valesky also noted in separate discussion of books about race that Black Lives Matter “is for destroying” and “they aren’t protecting Blacks.” When they passed the reading restriction rules, Valesky responded to the possibility of legal challenges with:
If we go to court over it, so be it, because at the end of the day we’re standing up for what’s right and for what God has said is right and true.
Their board lawyer resigned, noting that his advice about the legality of their actions was not only repeatedly ignored, but two board members called his opinion “a joke,” “worthless,” and “not even legal.”
All of this drew a couple of lawsuits and attention from national media, including a USA Today reporter who has file Right To Know requests, and Judy Woodruff, who visited the district earlier this year for a piece for PBS Newshour.
Board President Luigi DeFrancesco earlier this week introduced a motion to censure board member Jeff Brooks, accusing him of stirring up commotion around all of the board’s actions.
Specifically, the resolution accuses Brooks of “unprofessional conduct” because he “incite[d] the gay community against board members,” provoked Right To Know requests which led to unnecessary legal expenses (when the Meadville Tribune asked DeFrancesco how much expense, he replied “I have no idea”), and was “communicating with the media, specifically with USA Today which led to the RTK requests.” Brooks is also accused of harassing board members, including harassing DeFrancesco by exposing his emails that led to a RTK request.
In short, Brooks is accused of drawing widespread attention to the conservative members’ actions as board members. And during a contentious board meeting (in which one board member threatened to take the chair’s gavel and “stuff it somewhere”), the board voted in favor of the censure.
(I have reached out to DeFrancesco via e-mail and will update this post should he reply.)
Wisconsin
The Waukesha School District administration determined that a first grade class would not be allowed to sing the song “Rainbowland” because it “could be deemed controversial.”
The song, by Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton, features lyrics vaguely promoting a world where we can “be who we are” without “judgment and hate.” The song was initially replaced with the Muppets’ “Rainbow Connection.” Administration also nixed that choice, but reversed their decision after receiving parent e-mails.
The teacher, Melissa Tempel, is a National Board Certified teacher, and a co-editor of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality, an award-wining book about inclusion and representation in schools.
Tempel tweeted a comment about the administration choice (”When will it end?”) and it went viral (currently over 350K views) and drew national media attention over spring break. When Tempel returned from break, administrators were there to great her, along with police to escort her out of the building; she’d been placed on administrative leave.
As her suspension dragged on, her superintendent wrote to her that “the manner in which you chose to express your disagreement with the district’s decision over the song was inappropriate, disruptive and in violation of various district policies.” Therefore, “I will be recommending to the Board of Education that your employment with the School District of Waukesha be terminated.”
Last week, while Penncrest was gearing up to censure Jeff Brooks, Waukesha’s Superintendent James Sebert, who had previously praised the teacher (who has no other disciplinary action in her file) was testifying:
Ms. Tempel deliberately brought negative attention to the school district because she disagreed with the decision as opposed to following protocol and procedure. I believe that behavior is intolerable.
The board then terminated Tempel.
Of course, if either Brooks or Tempel know the secret of going viral and directing national attention to a local event, they should be rich soon. On the other hand, if school districts don’t want to be embarrassed on a national scale, the solution is not to micro-manage other peoples’ communication in order to squelch any mention of your actions.
But this sort of thing is inevitable. As some districts veer into more controversial actions, some school leaders will try to manage the controversy by punishing anyone they perceive as bringing public attention to that controversy.
In the meantime, Tempel has indicated that a lawsuit is in the works, demonstrating one other downside for the use of this technique for dealing with dissension in the ranks—sometimes when you try to hold the lid down on the boiling pot, it just makes a bigger mess.
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