Another Open Letter to the School District of Waukesha from a Resigning Teacher

There was a time not long ago that I thought I would spend my whole career in the School District of Waukesha. Now that I am moving on, there are some important signposts on the road to my exit that are worth mentioning. When I got to Waukesha, I had just earned my teaching license, and being fresh-faced and energetic, the interview panel considered me an investment for the long run. That is what former Associate Principal Todd Sobrilsky told me. During that new and exciting period, I’d learned that Waukesha South High School was a place with many strengths, most of which flew under the radar of the other two high schools. For instance, South High School is a microcosm of America as a whole: a diverse place populated by a plurality of social, political, economic and ethnic backgrounds. Students with Trump flags on their cars sitting in class alongside Latinos and Leftists, finding their way individually, but sharing a community where their voices could be heard, and to learn from one another. Among other things, South really did feel like a family where students, colleagues, support staff, and administrators had each other’s backs. I’ve seen this sense of community many times in the past six years. I’ve seen this through administrators who’ve given me their personal cell number if I ever needed emotional support, or the thunderous applause coming from the student body when students who are differently abled showcased their hard work at pep rallies or talent shows. From colleagues with whom I’ve forged lifelong friendships, to the many times my students have cried on my shoulder. For these reasons and more, I have found the prospect of leaving too painful to bear, until now.

The School District of Waukesha is doing harm to the students, but it’s not as simple as the School Board blaming pride flags, or disaffected teachers blaming the Superintendent. The system itself is a cancer that has metastasized and crept into every classroom across this massive district, and we know it’s doing harm to students because they show us that it does. To begin to scratch the surface of these problems, we have to identify the goals of the elected school board members, who overwhelmingly support the agenda of the nationally infamous Moms for Liberty organization. Board policies reflect a drive to adopt a curriculum that whitewashes any discussion of discrimination, whether it’s related to race or gender identity. Their narrative has always been to equate the discussion of racism with “critical race theory;” or a student grappling with gender dysmorphia, confiding in their teacher with “grooming.” Material ways that we can observe how this narrative harms students, includes implementing StudySync and TCI into our English and Social Studies curriculum. These so-called “rich” and “complex” texts offer highly outdated and disengaging views of history and literature. TCI, which my class dealt with this year, is three miles wide, and a half-inch deep, so there is no chance to engage in deep inquiry, or time to create projects. Truthfully, the problem isn’t the curricular resource itself, rather the fervor with which it was implemented. At the beginning of the school year, all of the English and Social Studies teachers were gathered for a meeting where school board policies were laid out in front of us, saying that every supplemental resource outside of the aforementioned would have to be approved by our supervising administrator. Every article, video, political cartoon, activity, had to be vetted for indoctrination. What did this meeting tell us? Well, the Director of Secondary Learning told me personally, when I expressed how this would ultimately cause students to disengage, “Rusty, your days of autonomous teaching are behind you.”

So began a cycle: Enforcement of milquetoast curriculum gives way to teachers feeling mistrusted and undervalued, which gives way to subpar instruction, which results in classrooms of disengaged learners who see no incentive to rise to the task. Ultimately, it returns to the problem of curriculum and policy, where the many factors causing these problems are not considered valid in the eyes of many of our stakeholders. In a discussion I held with my classes during final exams, the students reported that they noticed that some of their teachers appear to be phoning it in. Some teachers are asking for work in an unreasonable amount of time; others are too exhausted to lead engaging lessons. Regardless of the way this burnout is expressed, it is not their fault. What we are seeing is neither the students’ fault, nor is it teachers’ fault, because many of Waukesha’s best educators are seeking asylum elsewhere. In some cases, teachers are shifting to different buildings, others to different districts, and some, sadly, are leaving the profession entirely. I am leaving for a school that bears no resemblance to SDW, and I am glad of it. Education is too important to lose learning over culture wars, and students know this. Conservative students and Liberal students at South understand better than any that they have to exist on the same plane, and so they do far more to bridge their differences than the adults, and ultimately they found themselves agreeing with one another in a class discussion that regardless of what their ideology is, they are the ones who are getting the raw deal. 

There can be no question that SDW is in crisis. It is hemorrhaging teachers, and it is harming our students. So why is it that the policies and actors working to uphold them are doubling down, when the evidence is overwhelming that it’s doing more harm than good for morale at SDW? One example is how library staff are being overly scrutinized, often by people with no credentials to supervise a library; being questioned about certain books or publications that imply that this drooling dope of a supervisor can’t tell the difference between an anatomy textbook and a copy of Hustler. A second example is how leadership has shifted away from a collaborative way of problem solving, to one that relies on “corrective conversations” and letters of reprimand. Corrective conversations are doled out like candy these days: I had one for playing a video about Paul Revere; one colleague had one for using a source other than the approved curriculum. A third had one where she was accused of being racist (she’s black). 

What disturbs me more than demoralizing strong educators with so-called corrective conversations (what are they trying to “correct,” anyway?), is the clear pattern that those who speak up will be ousted or intimidated into silence. Ross Freshwater, a colleague of mine who is also leaving the district sent an email addressing his concerns about the impending curriculum rewrite for the classes he was teaching. When administrators were faced with the challenge, they simply asked, “Is this your resignation, then?” They are jumping right to “comply or else” without any semblance of reconciliation or desire to find common ground. I spoke up at a staff meeting about how the board policies were going to ruin everything we loved about South; this must have put a target on my back because within a matter of months I’d had two corrective conversations and a letter of reprimand. As far as I could tell, I did nothing discernibly different than in years past, so it’s hard not to believe that these measures were done out of spite. Lastly, I have one word: Rainbowland. 

SDW could turn its focus to a lot of real problems, among which include making sure every student has their needs met: a safe place to learn, a meal in their belly, and academic support to help them grow and thrive. Instead, the school district has a policy to steer this ship backwards, and it’s headed for a rocky coast. Our students are hurting because our teachers are hurting, because the policies of this district are cruel and exclusionary. Why feed a child when you can scare a trans kid back into the closet? Why allow a black student to study Angela Davis when you can attack a teacher for advocating for better conditions? It is tragic that the right wing ideology of this board has turned what was once a reputable school district into the Florida of the North. The cancer continues to spread across the school district, and many of the best and brightest teachers will choose a way out over pushing through in hopes that things will get better. If the school board wants to retain good teachers, they will have to do better than increase pay. They will have to restore autonomy to the classroom, and issue directives that would support teachers instead of malign them. Stop worrying about smut on the bookshelves and start focusing on meeting the needs of our students. Administrators, stop punishing teachers in hopes that they will fall in line. Until the community throws out the Moms for Liberty, or the teachers actually organize themselves, nothing is going to change. And until these things happen, you can continue to say goodbye to so many wonderful teachers, and you will struggle to attract new ones. Potential candidates will say, “Waukesha? Isn’t that where they fired a teacher over a rainbow song?”

Or do the school board members simply want to brow-beat our schools into such disarray that they can finally justify using public funds to send their children to religious schools, free of any “liberal indoctrination,” and of course, free of critical thinking.

Rusty Edlund