Idaho Teacher Told to Remove "Everyone Is Welcome Here" Sign: The Policies in Indianapolis, Muncie, and Beyond

     

 

     

 MERIDIAN, Idaho - One of the first things students see when they walk into a classroom is the walls.

     From the American flag to motivational posters, teachers nationwide and around the world are spending time and money to make for classrooms a welcoming space. Sarah Inama is one of those teachers. Sarah is a 6th grade teacher at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Idaho. She had two signs up in her classroom.

    One sign read, "Everyone is welcome here."

    The other? "In this room, everyone is welcome, important, accepted, respected, encouraged, valued, [and] equal."

    However, Inama was told to take the posters down as they weren't neutral and violated district policy.

(UPDATE) Public Records: West Ada School District Defends "Everyone Is Welcome Here" Sign Removal

    While she initially did, she felt off and put the signs back up. Now, they have to be down before the beginning of next school year.

    Vivian Bostick, for the Tell Viv podcast, tried reaching out to a local TV station Sarah interviewed with to get in touch with her, but didn't receive a response before the deadline.

    While the West Ada School District's Chief of Staff and Communications, Niki Scheppers, was unavailable for a phone interview, she emailed a statement reading in part:

    "West Ada firmly believes that a truly welcoming and supportive environment is built through meaningful relationships between staff and students, not just posters on the walls. While visual symbols can be valuable, it's the daily interactions, encouragement, and sense of belonging fostered by our educators and peers that make the greatest impact."

    The statement refers to policy 401.20. The policy, named "Duties and Responsibilities," was originally adopted in 2009.

      To read the policy to yourself, you can click here.

     Here in Muncie, Chief Communications Officer Andy Klotz said Muncie Community Schools (MCS) doesn't have a policy like West Ada's, and that different communities have different policies. 

    "Local communities have different standards for different things, right? And so that probably is, you know, unique to that community," Klotz shared.

    "As far as how we handle things, I can tell you that we have not had an issue in this area, so we don't have anything really to draw upon. I can tell you that there's no specific policy for teachers to display certain things or to not display certain things, and so therefore, you know, we can't point to anything that may have happened before. I can tell you that we would plan on handling things on a case-by-case basis, but I think it's a great sign that we haven't had any kind of issues in that regard."

    "We do have a policy for student work and what students can display, and so there is a specific policy about that, but again, have not drawn something specific up in regard to anything that a teacher can post."

     Klotz also shares that in an effort to do better, MCS has received an audit on their schools.

    "We want to be the best that we can be, is the bottom line, and so we undertook an audit to determine exactly where we were on this scale, on welcoming, and customer friendly, and inclusivity, and all of that," Klotz shared. "We had an outside agency come in and go through all our schools and give us a report, and we found out that, by and large, we are doing pretty well with room for improvement. We're not near the bottom, we're not quite near the top just yet. We're somewhere in between, and they titled us emerging in our efforts to be welcoming and inclusive, but I can tell you that of the individual reports that we got on all of our schools, we got numerous, repeated, I guess you would say, mentions of how friendly and welcoming our staff is."

    In Indianapolis, Bostick reached out to Lawrence Township's Director of Communications, Dr. Dana Altemeyer, as well as Warren Township's Chief Operations Officer, Marques Clayton. No response was received before the deadline.

    Bostick spoke with U.S. History teacher Randy Hudgins from Warren Central. He recalls a story similar to Sarah's when he taught in Fort Wayne. 

    "As a way of showing solidarity and accepting nature, she put that in her classroom and was approached by somebody, one of her superiors, and asked to take that down," Hudgins shared. "I'm not sure if it was something where they were worried about potential complaints or if there were already complaints filed or, you know, sometimes those in administration, you know, feel like they have to get out ahead of what they think might become controversial or get on the news, and I'm not sure if that always is, you know, the clearest of thinking."

    Similar to MCS, Hudgins says there is no policy like West Ada's at Warren, but if there was to be a policy, it would come from the school board. 

    "As far as I know, we don't have anything, you know, written down. I'm sure usually those type of things are governed by school board policies that are put forward by the school board. In my years, it's not something that I've really seen stated. From time to time, we have certain board policies we're reminded of in faculty meetings if there's been a situation that's happened or a concern or, you know, maybe certain things are evolving like with social media or other things that come from that. I don't really recall one being presented to us, you know, that said you can do this, you can't do that."

    "It's kind of up to the teacher individually, and I'm 42 years old, so I've been teaching for 20 years, and I told students the other day, I think I'm in my third generation of teaching students, but I've also noticed, you know, with some of my younger colleagues, they're more likely to display, you know, certain, you know, certain things in their classroom that go along with certain beliefs that they have or certain life experiences or certain, you know, things that are a part of just who they are, where they're from, where they went to school, you know, and just many aspects that make them unique, and folks that are my age kind of aren't as comfortable putting that stuff all around, but, you know, if you ask us, we'll tell you exactly where we're at on certain things."

    Hudgins shared that Warren Central cares about all its students and celebrates their differences.

    "I mean, you know, whether it be countries of origin, whether it be, you know, whether a person was born in the United States or not, what the dominant language in their home is, there's an attempt to--a very earnest attempt--to celebrate those differences and also try to provide the best learning environment. It starts from our administration at the top and all the way through, and a lot of times, I think we've given, we're given the best thing, you know, the best tools that we need to to help students or to provide support for students, even outside of a classroom environment, so I feel pretty confident with that."

    "Like, when I go to speak at the state legislature, like in front of committees and, you know, especially on certain bills, you know, that might pertain to what we can and can't say in the classroom or how we teach difficult concepts, I usually say, I don't worry about how this will impact me at Warren Central. I worry about those types of things happening in school districts outside of urban and suburban areas. You know, in Indiana, a good chunk of our state is rural, and I worry, you know, what is to become of, you know, teachers and students, you know, within those communities, especially those that don't conform to, you know, some of the things that people in small-town America may think is right or proper, but as, at least in terms of Warren Central, it's one of the reasons I choose to stay there."

    In the morning, Bostick spoke with a middle school teacher near the Evansville region who wished to remain anonymous to prevent outside retaliation. She shared that her school is supportive, with the former principal sending out optional signs for teachers.

    "Several years ago, our principal at the time, her name is Julie Kemp, she actually emailed five different signs that teachers were welcome to print and color, laminate and hang in their classrooms," the teacher shared. "No one was required, but it was all different versions of, you know, this is a safe space. Most of them had, you know, like, kind of like the signs with the different color hands, but then also like an ally flag for the LGBTQ community, and so that was encouraged from the top of our school."

    "That level of acceptance and love, it trickles down into every aspect of our school. Myself, I have one of the safe space signs just like right as you come in my door, and then I have an ally flag, not a huge one, but like a smaller ally flag in the back on my desk, just to kind of, because I know those kiddos, they will find it, no matter how big or how small. If they can see that ally flag, they'll know that, you know, I'm a safe space and they can come to me or any of us that have those signs."

    When asked if her school allows outside signs like Sarah's, which was from a teacher's store, she said...

    "Yes, 100% yes, and I actually have a really beautiful portrait that my son Ollie created that just talks about, you know, you're enough or, you know, or I think it says something like 'There's a lot of other people in the world, but there's only one you' or something like that, and it's a real pretty, like, and it's in the trans flag color, and I've got that hanging in the back of my room."

    She also shared that some teachers are concerned about a new portal from the state, allowing parents to report teachers over things they don't like. 

    "In the state of Indiana, they just now put a thing on their website, the Indiana Department of Education, that any parent can put in a, like, basically a complaint about any teacher, and there's a place in there to, like, include, like, a photo or you can attach, like, a document, like, if the teacher was to do a worksheet that they didn't agree with, and that is on the Indiana Department of Education website right now."

    "They just passed that, and it's, I don't remember what they call it, but it just makes all teachers just kind of, I don't know, nervous because we don't want to draw too much attention to the fact that we're so inclusive because of the issues that we have seen going on around us, but we also don't want to stop doing it." 

    Back in Idaho, on April 14th, there was a school board meeting. Some people showed up in support of Sarah, while some spoke in opposition. 

    To hear some voices from the meeting, listen to the Tell Viv podcast, either at the top of the page, on Spotify, or by selecting your provider on VivianBostick.com/tell.