This morning Len and I joined a protest organized by Alliance for Education in Waukesha.
Why?
No matter where you live in this nation, you are likely to have heard about the School Board of Waukesha’s boneheaded decision to put an award-winning teacher with years of experience on administrative leave because -- she taught her 1st graders to sing Rainbowland, a song written by Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus.
“Livin' in a rainbowland
Where you and I go hand in hand
Oh, I'd be lyin'
If I said this was fine
All the hurt and the hate going on here
We are rainbows, me and you
Every color, every hue
Let's shine through
Together, we can
Start livin' in a rainbowland”
Yup, for teaching this to her kids, teacher Melissa Tempel was removed from her classroom in April, leaving first graders without their trusted teacher. For daring to go on social media to say she thinks this vendetta against her is wrong, she was accused by Superintendent James Seibert of insubordination of school district protocols.
There’s going to be a fair amount of press about this protest today. As I am writing this the school board is still meeting to decide if they will fire her or not. Probably they will.
I haven’t been to a protest in a while. I never like to go to them. I always want to stay home and drink coffee and read novels. Or even clean the house; that’s how weirded out I sometimes get by protests. Not sure why, other than I was raised to be quiet and it’s still a challenge to challenge myself. (I have a website. Hah!)
Here are some people I met today:
A guy, Tim, who is retired. He said he voted straight Republican every election of his life until Covid hit. Then he watched the Trump/Republican administration intentionally not take care of American citizens because they could get more traction fostering suspicion and that, he knew, was crazy. He started listening to a local progressive radio station, heard smart people discussing important issues, and realized his political leanings were changing. So today he came to this protest to support a teacher who is being weirdly and unjustly harassed.
I said to him I have good friends who up until Trump always voted all Republican. But, there are people in their families who are people of color or are LGBTQ kids and grandkids - so now their votes are no longer seamlessly Republican. He said yup, him, too.
I met a woman, Kathryn, who said her first protest was the pink hat protest in Madison the weekend Trump was inaugurated. We talked about the wild huge energy of that event.
I met two women who are parents of kids in the school district. One started homeschooling during Covid when all parents were homeschooling - but when Waukesha School district started making these harsh decisions, she decided to keep her kids out of this fray.
There were 140 people there in support of the First Amendment and Melissa Tempel. There were about four who were there in support of the school board.
…
The local progressive radio station is 101 FM: https://waukradio.com/
Rainbowland Lyrics: https://genius.com/Miley-cyrus-rainbowland-lyrics
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story (so far) on the probable firing of teacher Melissa Tempel: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2023/07/12/hearing-determines-fate-of-waukesha-teacher-who-criticized-rainbowland-ban/70392673007/
Alliance for Education in Waukesha: https://www.facebook.com/allianceforeducationinwaukesha
Add new comment