How One Teacher’s Black Lives Matter Lesson Divided a Small Wisconsin Town

In late August, during the second week of school in Burlington, Wisconsin, Melissa Statz heard children in her fourth grade class talking about Kenosha.

A couple of students had seen burned and boarded-up buildings in the nearby city, but they didn’t know the details of the protests that filled the streets after a police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back on Aug. 23. One student asked Statz, 30, if she knew what was going on in Kenosha, which is a half-hour drive from Burlington, a town of 11,000 that is 89 percent white.

Statz thought this could be a teachable moment, so that week she used a children’s book, an educational video and a worksheet to lead a discussion on racism and why people were protesting. She considered the materials neutral. The worksheet posed questions like, “What is the Black Lives Matter Movement trying to do?” and “How Do We Stop Systemic Racism?” The students seemed engaged, and asked a lot of questions, she said.

“One of the Black girls in my class came up to me and said, ‘Thank you so much for teaching our class about racism,’” Statz, who is white, said. Another Black child — one of fewer than 50 Black students in a district of more than 3,000 — gave her a hug after the lesson, she said.

Later that night, a colleague told Statz to look at a private community Facebook group with more than 40,000 members called “Burlington, WI, buy sell & trade.” Her stomach dropped.

A parent had posted photos of the worksheet Statz used and slammed it as an attempt to “indoctrinate our kids.” Like-minded community members were outraged and demanded that the school district discipline Statz.

The arguments on social media spilled into a heated school board meeting in September, racial slurs were graffitied on Burlington’s school campuses and a deluge of harassing messages were directed at Statz accusing her of sowing division in the small town.

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The uproar in Burlington echoes conflicts in schools and districts nationwide in recent weeks as classes resumed for the first time after massive racial justice protests swept the country following George Floyd’s death, and teachers brought the Black Lives Matter movement into the classroom.

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The words “Black Lives Matter” have become a Rorschach test, splitting people who see it as a political slogan inappropriate for school, and those who consider it a statement vital to ensuring students of color feel safe and valued. Educators say that districts are going to have to face these quarrels head on, as some teachers, parents and community leaders advocate for a more frank conversation about race, bias and privilege in the classroom, while others, including white parents and police unions, push back.

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In May, after video of the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man in Georgia, became public, Statz began looking for people in Burlington who were similarly concerned about racial justice. She discovered the Burlington Coalition for Dismantling Racism, a local activist group started last fall by Darnisha Garbade, a Black mother who was frustrated with her own family’s experience at school.

Garbade, 40, said children repeatedly made derogatory remarks about Black people to her daughters, particularly her youngest, who is 12. Over the past two years, Garbade said, white children spit at her daughter, punched her and pushed her down the stairs at school. One boy threatened to kill her, according to school documents.

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An attorney hired by the district to review Garbade’s concerns concluded that the harassment and school responses had nothing to do with race, and that school officials acted reasonably. The state Department of Public Instruction is reviewing a complaint from Garbade to look into any potential racial bias.

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Garbade began going to school board meetings to speak, and talking to other people in town about what she felt the school district could do better to address racism. Several people joined the cause, and they started to call themselves the Burlington Coalition for Dismantling Racism.

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While the district reported zero cases of racial discrimination to the state from fall 2016 to spring 2019, it documented 21 incidents of bullying based on race during the same period in reports to the school board, records show. District data also show Black students were disciplined at a rate nearly five times higher than their white peers.

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In a July letter responding to the coalition’s concerns, the district denied that children of color were being called racial slurs at school, and instead said there are “student-to-student microaggressions that may or may not be intended as racist but inflict harm.” The district promised to review its policies and curriculum for potential improvements and to consider a “more restorative approach to student discipline.”

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Polling shows around 45 to 49 percent of Americans support the Black Lives Matter movement, but the rate is much higher among teachers. An EdWeek Research Center survey in June found the vast majority of educators, 81 percent, supported Black Lives Matter, and only 16 percent were unwilling to teach or support an anti-racist curriculum.

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In Burlington, the Coalition for Dismantling Racism organized several rallies and protests this summer drawing attention to racial justice in schools. In one event, a dozen people stood outside of Burlington’s City Hall, a simple two-story corner brick building, chanting “Black education matters!”

Statz began attending protests and drafted a petition in June to add more Black history and diverse perspectives into the school curriculum. She also started thinking about how she might be able to incorporate racial equity lessons into her teaching.

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Jim Crawley, 60, was the first to post about Statz’s lesson in the “Burlington, WI, Buy sell & trade” group on Aug. 27. He said another parent shared the worksheet with him, knowing that Crawley, whose daughter is in first grade, was already concerned about Black Lives Matter being taught in class. He considers it a Marxist organization.

“You can’t even go out to eat dinner without them trying to get you on your knees,” Crawley, who is white, said. {snip}

Images of the worksheet quickly spread online, including in a private group for Wisconsinites angry about Covid-19 restrictions and mandates. {snip}

Taylor M. Wishau, a Burlington school board member, commented on a post about the lesson plan that he was “irate.” The teacher “went rogue and will be dealt with,” he wrote. {snip}

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Burlington’s school superintendent, Stephen Plank, initially took a neutral stance on Statz’s lesson. In an Aug. 30 letter to parents, he called the lesson “an individual decision, not part of the approved curriculum,” and added that if parents want clarification about what their children are learning in school, they are welcome to call their children’s teacher.

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Dozens of parents in Burlington joined a private Facebook group called “Parents Against Rogue Teachers.” Melby, an administrator of the group, said parents angry about the lesson were not against racial equality — they were upset the lesson plan was not part of the authorized curriculum, and their anxiety had been heightened by a deadly shooting during protests in Kenosha that week.

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The showdown came at a Sep. 14 school board meeting.

Around 200 community members packed into the bleachers of a gymnasium and spent two hours speaking for and against the lesson plan. Some defended Statz for creating an environment in which her students feel free to ask difficult questions. Others called on the school board to fire her, saying she had pushed an agenda on fourth graders and violated district policy.

At the end of the meeting, a board member read a short statement to the audience, acknowledging “this is a highly charged and emotional topic.” Then, without using Statz’s name, the board said that she wasn’t going to be fired over the “one-time use of curricular materials.” The issue was a “personnel matter” and was addressed internally, the board said. {snip}

Many people left the meeting disappointed. Those who wanted Statz fired believed the school board was yielding to Black Lives Matter protesters. Statz’s defenders said the board should have more clearly defended her and lessons tackling racism.

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Then, three days after the school board meeting, according to the district, a group of students etched “die [n-word] die” and “down with BLM” into wood chips at Cooper Elementary School, where Statz teaches.

The following day, Sept. 18, Superintendent Plank issued an open letter in response. He apologized for the district previously declaring neutrality on the Black Lives Matter lesson plan.

“I see how my perspective was offensive and understand that there is no neutrality when pursuing equity,” Plank said in the letter. “The fact that we even need to specifically say that Black Lives Matter to affirm the importance of human beings is to say that we as a nation have not done a good job of regarding Black and brown people as valuable members of our society historically or currently.”

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Even before the vandalism, Garbade decided to pull her children out of Burlington schools and enroll them in Kenosha’s district. “Looking at the recent hate crimes in Burlington,” she said, “it seems like it was a very wise choice.” However, she plans to continue pushing the Burlington district to adopt an anti-racism policy, expand the curriculum to include Black history lessons and address racial disparities in discipline.

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