Today is March 24, 2022, four years since I attended and spoke at:

I talked about how I was pressured to work at prisons by my siblings when my children's father left, but I resisted, because I want PEACE. I don't want to work every day in an environment where one's authority comes from a gun.

As a parent, I did not want to harden my heart to be able to work in an environment that dehumanizes all involved; I feared that it would harden me to my own children's humanity. Working in a prison was a hard NO for me, never a remote possibility--as a woman, as a parent, as a citizen. No. No. No.

I spent 25 years at Adrian High School teaching and advocating for PEACE. I worked on every diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and conflict resolution initiative that the district initiated, I attended several DEI workshops every year on my own dime, and in my last few years of teaching, I gave some workshops on the subject. I advocated for human and civil rights for girls, BIPOC students, LGBTQ students, pacifist students, students with Autism, secular students, students against gun violence, and any student who came to me for assistance in securing their human and civil rights at school.

One right that is often threatened or trampled on at school is the right to free speech--for students, but for teachers, too.

March For Our Lives organizer, Shane Shananaquet

In February, before the rally at the courthouse, the students planned a walk-out, as did students from around the nation, to protest gun violence and to demand that adults take action to secure their safety at school. Shane and the other student organizers did an excellent job of planning the action, inviting participation, alerting administrators, and inviting press coverage.

AHS Student Walk-Out (video)

Adrian High School students walked out of school on Wednesday, Feb. 21, in memory and protest of the Parkland school shooting. The students held signs that read "Enough" and were outside, largely silent, for 17 minutes, one minute for each life lost in the Florida shooting that occurred the week prior. --Daily Telegram

Of course, I supported my students' right to peacefully participate in democracy by direct action. The organizers spoke of their plans in my class beforehand. I asked a question about whether or not they wanted to cross the bus loop to get to the bell monument, since there is memorial garden they could use that wouldn't require anyone to enter the parking lot. Otherwise, I had no input. The students were in charge and had the support of their parents.

The well-planned  walk-out took place without a hitch, even with students crossing the bus loop to the bell, and the students accomplished their goals and felt good about how it went. I was proud of them and glad to see administrators expressing support for them and school safety.

But I would soon come to understand that the administrators' support was purely performative. Behind the scenes, they began "investigating" me for the "crime" of supporting my students' First Amendment rights to demand not to be killed by gun violence at school. For the next few days after the walk-out, many of my students were called in for questioning, as administrators tried to find a reason to punish me for the walk-out.

They tried to suggest that I put the students up to it--when it was a national movement--and when Shane and his parent had made them fully aware of what was going to happen and who had organized it.

When that tactic failed, they used "attendance errors" as a reason to suspend me without pay for two days.

On the very day that I received my penalty, an email had gone out from the attendance office, alerting a list of about a dozen teachers who had made similar errors in attendance that they (and I) needed to correct our attendance errors and resubmit our reports. No others faced any disciplinary action (it's a completely normal thing; nobody should be disciplined for unavoidable errors).

It was then I learned that the superintendent keeps the guaranteed "attendance error foul" in his back pocket, to use whenever he wants to control faculty through financial retaliation with unpaid suspensions.

With the arrival of new high school principal in 2017, until I retired in 2019, adminstrators were constantly hassling me over teaching history, mythology, critical thinking, civil rights, the American Constitution and Bill of Rights, and most of all--diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Out of the blue, things I'd taught for 25 years were suddenly deemed "controversial." Anything that can make white supremacists, misogynists, and Christian Nationalists uncomfortable could suddenly be declared "controversial," and I'd be directed to never again mention it, under threat of disciplinary action. Some examples:

Without protections for academic freedom for K-12 teachers, partisan administrators can silence and erase any historical fact, social movement, or text, simply by labeling it "controversial." In this way, teachers' speech rights and professional expertise can be legally trampled upon by unethical administrators, curriculum can be micromanged, and students' access to accurate information about any subject at all can be denied–because someone in power feels uncomfortable.

I want PEACE. I want to go to work and teach the truth about human history in a district that doesn't want to erase or silence any member of the community, no matter how uncomfortable administrators are with their existence or expression. Adrian had been that place for me until the departure of superintendent, Chris Timmis, who responded quickly and decisively to protect student rights during his time leading the district and respected teachers' academic expertise.

The civil rights of students and teachers are inseparably intertwined. When teachers' rights are protected, they can advocate for student rights. When their rights are trampled, they cannot protect their students.

Previous administrators never liked being called to account on student rights, like when the ACLU had to remind a former high school principal that students have the right to a Gay-Straight Alliance, but they would eventually do the right thing, when students persistently demanded their rights. (Which is still fucked up, but better than the repressive climate of the most recent several years.) It was and still is the most shocking and horrifying realization of my life to realize that I now worked in a school where teachers could face disciplinary action for advocating for student rights.

With the loss of academic freedom, the threatening and toxic environment, lockdown drills, and active-shooter trainings, school became more and more like the prisons where my siblings worked and that I'd refused. (I'll never recover from the day I had to pretend to teach a class of colleagues while a cop burst into the room and pretended to shoot me in the face, then yelled at us afterward about how badly we'd reacted, with normal, human, fight/flight/freeze responses.)

I never wanted to work in an environment where authority comes from a gun or where I must train to be shot. 

That's why, three years ago (3/24/22), having had enough of the administration's fuckery, I posted this announcement on social media:

For those who are concerned:

I am well. I am on a personal leave from work until my retirement on 6/30.

Thank you for your concern.

If my students ask you about me, please give them my love. When I am retired, I will accept social media requests from them. For now, they can follow my blog Citizen Teacher if they wish to be in touch.

Peace & Love to All.

It broke my heart to leave a career I loved and meant to spend 30 years pursuing, but when teachers' rights are trampled at school, we have no way to protect our students' rights. It traumatized me deeply to see "educators" working to silence students and teachers who are advocating for diversity, equality, inclusion, 1A rights--and the right to not be shot to death at school. 

As I celebrate my third anniversary of retirement, I am proud to look at my "disciplinary record" as an employee. Every disciplinary action taken against me by adminstration was for speaking the truth and/or standing up for the human and civil rights of my students. And even though I faced financial retaliation TWICE, I wouldn't change a thing, because my decisions were based on the principle that nothing is more important than my students' safety and their human and civil rights. 

Perhaps, as a new superintendent takes the reins in the district, efforts will be made to create a truly safe place for all, where the human and civil rights of all students and teachers are guaranteed, where the truth of history can be taught, and where diversity, equity, and inclusion are vigorously pursued in practice by all adminstrators and faculty, through civil discourse and democratic processes that honor and represent all stakeholders. 

I hope this is the case. The students in this community deserve such a place to learn to practice the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship. Their teachers deserve respect as professionals. "School safety" needs to include the right to explore ideas that may make people uncomfortable, but are not real threats. As long as students and teachers are not safe to speak honestly about the conditions of our lives, not only are we, as people, unsafe; our democracy is under threat as well.
 

lisa eddy (she/her) is a writer, researcher, youth advocate, environmental educator, and musician. Email: lisagay.eddy1@gmail.com