Affirming Inclusive Learning Environments Webinar [Video]

This is an opportunity for School Board Candidates and other interested parties to learn how to support LGBTQ+ youth in our school systems. We will hear from school board members, candidates, and teachers about how they address small groups of people who want to harm LGBTQ+ students. We will also hear from families about what they need from school boards. We will also provide advice on how current candidates can talk about LGBTQ+ issues when running for school board.

Sponsoring organizations: AFT-Wisconsin, Fair Wisconsin, GSAFE, Human Rights Campaign

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:00
thank you everyone for joining us um very excited to have all of you here
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today we i’m wendy strout i am the state
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director for the human rights campaign and i use she her pronouns and we’re very excited to have
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our participants here today we’re excited to have our attendees here today
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we are aft fair wisconsin g-safe and hrc all
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came together to you know knowing that school board issues are
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kind of a hot topic issue especially when it comes to lgbtq plus students
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we wanted to really offer some guidance to people who are running for school board people who are running you know
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who are school board members people who want to be supportive and have affirming school districts so we wanted to provide
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this this webinar for all of you um and we are joined with teachers
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school board members candidates as well as families and so um you’re going to hear from a
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bunch of different perspectives and at the end you’ll also get a toolkit that we will send out to everybody
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they can give you more guidance as well but with that i am going to ask sean
1:18
to read a land acknowledgement agreement that we always like to share because we
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are wisconsin and we have several tribal nations that um are that wisconsin is home so wanted to um
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turn it over to sean o’brien from fair wisconsin thank you wendy
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um so we acknowledge the circumstances that led to the forced removal of indigenous
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people and honor their legacy of resistance and resilience this history of genocide and colonization informs our
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work and vision for a collaborative future we recognize and respect the inherent sovereignty of the first
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nations within the boundaries of the state of wisconsin it is important for us to give the
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utmost respect to those who inhabited this unsurrendered land before us we need to know where we have been as a
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people where we are now because of our history to see where we are going and where we want to go thank you
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thank you very much sean um so with that i would like you to meet all of our sponsors are
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um you know and co-sponsors of this uh webinar uh we’re gonna start up with aft wisconsin i’m gonna introduce introduce
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aft um with some people a little bit under the weather but our partners at aft wisconsin
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they’ve been supporters of all students and work with educators and districts to be more welcoming and inclusive
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um and so i am now going to turn it over to fair wisconsin to introduce themselves
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hi my name is sean o’brien he him i’m the advocacy and organizing strategist at fair wisconsin uh the executive
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director megan mcdonnell is also on the call tonight fair wisconsin is wisconsin’s only
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statewide lgbtq civil rights advocacy organization
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thank you and jesus thanks wendy hey everybody my name is brian j my pronouns are he him and i am
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one of the co-executive directors at gsafe we’re a statewide education organization
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focused on making sure our trans and non-binary and lgbt q-plus young people are
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not only safe but thriving and feeling affirmed and included
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thank you and i just said human rights campaign i’m the state director she her
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pronouns and we are the part of the largest lgbtq civil rights organization
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in the country and we work alongside our partners in each state to further
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equality for all lgbtq people um and with that i’d like to introduce
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our panelists um so we’re gonna um start off with kristin kaiser would you like to
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introduce yourself sure thank you so much for you know allowing me to be here tonight my name
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is kristen kaiser i am a second year member of the west allis west milwaukee
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school board i’m also a fourth year fourth grade teacher at indian community school certainly not
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my fourth year but been a big a
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big proponent of hrc for many years and i’m just honored to be here tonight
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wendy i think you’re muted oh i’m sorry kathy would you like to introduce yourself yes hi my name is kathy and i am
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a proud parent of a non-binary high school student who is with us tonight
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hello my name is quill i usually like pronouns
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and i am a senior
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thank you laura hi my name is laura cruz i
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am a member of local 1275 here in ashland
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and i work with a wide variety of students and believe that it’s imperative that all
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students and staff members are safe in their work environment
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thank you leah hi leah lipska i am um the current board
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clerk of the mount horab area school district i am in my ninth year um and up for re-election this year um and i’m
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really excited to be here thank you i’m nick
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good evening everyone my name is nick ross i use they them pronouns
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i work for diverse and resilient which is the largest lgbtq
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non-profit in the state of wisconsin i work for their anti-violence program out of our appleton office
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um but so i am bringing that to this discussion tonight but the main hat i’m wearing is as a candidate a first-time
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candidate for the appleton area school district school board my fiance is a teacher in the district
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and through my work i have worked with students and families across the state including in our district
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providing resources and support so part of my candidacy one of my main
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priorities is to leverage all of the great connections i’ve made with local resource providers in our community to
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benefit all students and families in the district so i’m really excited to be here tonight and i’m hoping to learn
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um from all the other wonderful speakers here tonight as well
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you and kimberly thank you for inviting me as well my name is kimberly saylor i’m the current
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president of the mount horberry school districts board of education i’m also involved in our local pflag chapter and
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i’m a kindergarten educator with the monona grove school district
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thank you everyone for being here i’m very excited to have all of our panelists here today
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so we’re just going to jump into some questions and if we have time um feel free to drop some questions in the chat
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and michelle will help us monitor and we’ll hopefully we’ll have some time at the end
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um so the first question is for our school board members and our candidates
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how do you view the role of the school board in protecting lgbtq
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plus students and anyone can jump in first
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uh well something that we recently did was um reviewed our policy i brought up the
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fact that we need to make sure we are reviewing our policies and made sure that we have she her he him they them
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across the board that we have protections for our transgender students for
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privacy in the schools and actually what we’re moving toward more is more privacy options for students versus
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splitting between one or the other we’ve also included direct language in
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all of our policies that protect um cisgender transgender non-binary
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everybody in between so that is while we might have a board that’s very supportive one day there might be a
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board that isn’t and so we put into policy now what we are going to do to protect our
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kids and just say flight across the board that’s how we’re doing it here in west allis
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i’d be happy to go next uh piggybacking on kristen yes the primary role of a
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school board member is to create policy so we do need to make sure that we’ve done everything we can
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to make sure that we don’t exclude anyone and to give everyone a fair chance at school success
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also you will probably have an opportunity to write equity statements and also anti-racist statements and
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please be strong and clear in your language you want to watch for passive language like we hope to provide or we
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strive to include all and say instead we will provide we will include no exceptions
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lastly we need to demonstrate to our community that we will not tolerate discrimination or hate and prove that by
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taking appropriate disciplinary action to those who violate our students rights
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thank you anyone else so yeah yeah um we also also to piggyback off what uh kimberly said
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since we’re in the same district but we’ve also just developed a framework so when we’re going to do anything we had a
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field trip or anything we review our new equity framework to see are we
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not thinking about inclusion in any way shape or form how is this going to affect all of our
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students and again changing all of our policies which was has been quite an undertaking
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um i i just wanted to give the uh experienced board members a chance to
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uh share first so i really appreciate i’m taking some of those tips with me as
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i continue my campaign um and you know i would say i agree with
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the uh priority is policy development inclusive equitable policy development making sure
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that things like gender identity and gender expression are
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like explicitly stated in non-discrimination policies um
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and you know i think the other school board members spoke about
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the policy development aspect of it pretty well i would also say just like
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um you know generating an explicit culture of support for lgbtq students in
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your actions as a board member in your activities throughout the community because i think
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when that starts at the top at the school board level that um
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create helps to create a culture of acceptance and affirmation for lgbtq
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youth and i guess i mean something that i would like to see in our district is i would
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like to see the school board members actually get training on
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uh how to affirm lgbtq youth because i feel like if there’s a groundwork that
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everybody shares then um you can get more buy-in from all the different members on uh creating
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inclusive and equitable policies to affirm lgbtq youth and we know that you
12:00
don’t know what you don’t know so people in positions of power on the school board should you know it’s their
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duty to be well informed so i think that providing training to school board
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members would help do that i’d like to piggyback off of nick leah
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kim everybody else saying you know we have equity standards at our district as well and something that a board member
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needs to do is you pull it up every time you’re talking at committee you pull it up and we’re talking about new ideas so
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that they don’t get pushed aside like oh we’ve got these great equity you know statements
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they’re living breathing and should be thought of every decision you make for your school for your kids
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great thank you everyone those are great great responses and i love that i love that vision of you
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um so the next question for for school board members and candidates is you know what advice do you have for
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school board candidates who are currently running who want to be good allies
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but are also facing a small minority of people who want to erase lgbtq students
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and and curriculum
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although my advice is progress has never been a failing
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solution to anything progress such as discussions we’re having now to protect
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our transgender students progress of having equity statements progress of
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changing pronouns in policy you’re always on the winning side of history when you are focusing on that
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progress never be afraid to be who you are who you support because the loudest people
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in the room aren’t always right it’s the
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you will have more people come out of the woodwork and say oh my gosh thank you i’m so happy you’re doing this i
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just don’t want to get those people involved on what we’re saying and i think it’s really important to always
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validate our kids at the end of the day they’re kids and we are they’re adults
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and we’re protecting everything we can for them so don’t be afraid
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be out there i’m happy to go next
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another piece of advice would be to get to know which community groups are already working on this cause and
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immediately offer your support publicly because you’re going to find that there’s movers and shakers in your town
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who have been on this path a very long time and likely have already worked with your districts on specific issues
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i can give you one relevant example for the school board members wisconsin state law requires that we create a human
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growth and development committee whose role is to advise the school board on the design and implementation of the
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curriculum on this topic and also that law further states that this committee must be comprised of
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parents teachers school administrators pupils health care professionals and
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members of your clergy so while this human growth and development curriculum only needs to be
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approved by the school board every five years it’s typically the people who volunteer for that committee who want to
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see inclusive and welcoming schools and curriculums and they’re going to advocate for your district efforts
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year-round
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um i’m gonna talk just a little bit from the candidate perspective like if
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not on a board yet um but i will say unfortunately so like i’ve received so much overwhelming
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support it’s been amazing as like an out lgbtq candidate uh it’s not something i
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was expecting something i was expecting were uh was to get
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um you know targeted because of my identity and that has happened and you know the attacks are vicious i’m not
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going to repeat any thing that i have that has been
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you know tossed at me but most of these things happen on social media thankfully i have a great support system
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so that i can rely on them to like complain and just like be
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upset about the hateful things people are saying um but you know i would really like
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to see other candidates supporting each other so
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you know uh you know if you notice that an out lgbtq candidate is getting
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targeted because of their identity um i would say please like allyship is a
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verb stand up and say something about it you know bullying if if if you as a
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candidate do not want bullying in our schools we should feel the same way
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about you know bullying that is happening to each other any one of us who is being
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targeted because of our identity um you know so i would love to see more of that
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in my race um because you know i guess i’m just i’m being a
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little vulnerable here i guess but like as a first-time candidate you can tell yourself they’re just trolls
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and try to move on but it’s it it’s hard and it sticks with you and it’s nice
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when people demonstrate their support in a public way
17:28
thank you for that that’s all really great advice leah yeah i will say that um any time i’ve
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ever met with someone who’s considering running for the board the first thing i tell them is you have to have thick skin
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you can make decisions that you think are so minor we had a discussion about
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possibly offering free coffee you think that would be i don’t know something cool oh no it turned into a big thing i
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don’t like coffee i like juice uh coffee isn’t wellness i mean so when we get into these more complex
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issues it gets even harder and get yourself a good support system if you don’t have one and you get on the
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board because you will need it um you you have to have an outlet uh write
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paint run um something um because you you have to
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find a way to to channel that stress and you will be called names that you would never think
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anyone would ever call you i’ve been called a bully i was a union president i i was a bully then i’m not a bully on
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the school board so um you know it’s
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you have to have thick skin and you have to figure out a way to to channel it so it doesn’t get to you
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thank you um that’s all great advice i really appreciate that uh so but now
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we’re gonna switch a little bit of direction and we’re going to ask some questions to our
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teachers and some of these teachers are also school board members as well so we have a couple of questions for teachers
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uh so you know because you know teachers are very much a big part of the school district and implementing these policies
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so the first question i have is what do you need from your school board
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to feel safe in supporting lgbtq plus students in your school district
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i get to go i teach at a school that is very lgbtq
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um safe and supportive a year ago
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i went to our head of school and said hey can i make a pride flag for my classroom that says i love you and all
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the tribal languages and immediately said yes and we’re going to make copies we’re going to put them up all the school and so knowing i had that ability
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to you know i’ve always been open with the kids about loving who they are
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and having administration say that we can do that and backed with policy
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we’re going to support our kids is really powerful we have our policies in west allis west
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milwaukee that says you know controversial issues can be on a base by
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base situation and we had folks drive around the district looking for ways to be mad at us
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and we had a first grade teacher with a rainbow flag we told her move it to another wall
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because we support what you want to support but there’s always that leah said there’s always someone out there
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who is going to look for ways to tear us down and on the end of the day we’re always going to be on
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the side of wellness and what’s best for our kids if we are
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supporting policies and telling folks it’s okay to support
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lgbtq kids and let’s go for it
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i i i i um
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i oh okay i’m not feeling very good today um i agree with you and i think
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that it’s really important that school board members uh learn
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about and educate themselves about the statistics uh that are out there um
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if you’re not familiar with the yrbs
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student surveys when you look at the stats
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it’s it’s you know suicide rates
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um bullying there’s just i mean the
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it’s just when you see it it just makes me cry because
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um i was in that position too um growing up and it’s nice that there’s more support
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but i still think that yes we need to support
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students it needs to be in our curriculum if if we don’t have a policy
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that indicates that we will have curriculum
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that that has people that when they look
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in the curriculum they see themselves if that’s not there
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you’re going to continue to have many issues because you do not
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belong and you also need to support us as teachers on
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how to handle things you know uh a lot of people just don’t know
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and so everyone across the board really needs
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to educate themselves and and figure out thank you to whoever put the the yrbs
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report out there um uh there’s too many
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too many kids who attempt suicide there’s too many staff members who
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will leave the profession because they don’t feel supported in their districts and
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and that’s a shame and that’s awful actually and so we need to have in in
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all sorts of different uh areas about stonewall and history and
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you know there’s a lot of that one’s an easy one but there’s a lot of information
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and that should be in the curriculum and it’s just really imperative and then
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support those those teachers and those advocates
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that’s the most important thing i believe that you can you can do for our community
24:06
thank you um i have another question for teachers is
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you know this is you know and there might be some teachers out there might be some school board members out there like wondering
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you know what do teachers do you know to support lgbt students so i’d love to hear from
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teachers like what are some of the ways that you have been able to provide an affirming space to lgbt
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plus students
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well something that i’ve started doing is you know waving my pride flag around my classroom
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making sure we include non-binary characters when i’m writing stories with my students we you would not believe the
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fact that most of these kids have never had a they them character when they write a story so we talk about that we
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buy books and make sure we have um unique characters and everything in
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between our school very thankfully allowed us to start a gay straight alliance
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and we have been very actively um running this and for about three
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months now and we averaged 30 kids in a small private school and
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it’s been very well supported by our board by our head of school and
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our school has internally started talking about ways we can protect students whose parents aren’t supportive
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internally in our school why you know we can start putting things like the preferred pronouns preferred names
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because that’s information for us to use we if parents aren’t ready to support
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their child then we can support them in a safest space possible because like laura said
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it is devastating the suicide rate and homeless rate that occurs because families can’t be
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supportive and i know i can’t speak for everyone but i know for other teachers they’re my kids
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from the minute they get me in fourth grade until however long they’re always giving my kids and if the only person they hear
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all day is i love you and i support you and if you need something let me know
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it’s wonderful and that’s a huge way teachers can support their students
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i noticed um in the uh the chat um you know libraries making
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sure there’s a wide variety of books um as you said uh with they them
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uh and there’s yep the trevor uh project
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and having that information that’s out there with those hotline numbers
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so individuals can find that information readily instead of trying to google who
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knows what um and potentially um
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you know some some they’ve got filters that go through uh
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in the internet and that could put someone at risk depending upon those
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filters and um i think that working with um
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you know the the groups that are on here will really just help everyone move forward and
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i remember having a conversation with a with a teacher who
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his belief was that
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it wasn’t okay for people like me and uh and students and
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whatever and and i just said you know i value your beliefs
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and when you come on campus and are on school property and you’re
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taking uh trips school sponsored trips your first priority is to ensure the
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safety of all kids and if you’re unable to do that for all
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students then you’re probably in the wrong field
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and and i think that really kind of opened his eyes like whoa
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um and
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thank you thank you um so i appreciate hear from the teachers that um we definitely want to hear from
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the families that are affected by some of these school policies and i want to address this first question to kathy
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um what do you need from your school board to feel safe and
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welcome and for your child to feel safe and welcome in your school district
29:04
thank you wendy um you know it’s it’s a large part having it in the policies such
29:10
that the lgbtq youth can be identified
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by their names and not necessarily their legal names um
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so that they can feel safe and so that they don’t have a dead name
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um and it allows for them to be identified by their pronouns
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um and you know it’s
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it’s also frustrating when we think that our district has these in policies but then you get one parent to to file a
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lawsuit and suddenly there’s concerns about the school district having to backpedal and
29:50
then it and then it feels as if our youth are not protected so being able to have those policies in place firmly in
29:57
place and i like the idea of writing it from the standpoint of protecting everyone so that if you get
30:05
a school board panel that isn’t quite as inclusive so then it’s harder for them
30:11
to dismantle that um you know in terms of with with teachers you know having the teachers
30:18
checking in with the students to make sure that they’re being supportive to the students
30:23
i know one of the biggest complaints from other transparent and other trans youth is substitute teachers that
30:31
unfortunately commonly they they’re the list of students that they’re given
30:36
has the dead name and not the name of the student um and so then they’re harmed every single time there’s a
30:42
substitute teacher so it’s having teachers making putting in all the effort as they
30:47
prepare to have a substitute teacher to protect our youth another big thing is gender-neutral
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bathrooms there’s not enough um and when there are gender-neutral
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bathrooms you know really encouraging people who have other options for bathrooms to use those instead
31:08
so that those students who don’t have as many options
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can actually have the opportunity to go to the bathroom during the day for for some trans youth they can’t ever go to
31:20
the bathroom at school because they can’t ever get into a general neutral bathroom um and then lastly it’s it’s making sure
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that our school board and and the school administration and the teachers all have training on how to
31:36
support our lgbtq youth
31:42
um i just want to take a moment to think oh yeah sorry just to thank kathy for that and
31:48
um you know part of my work with diverse and resilient is going into school districts to provide trainings and we
31:56
often specifically about the gender-neutral bathroom situation um
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you know there are things that student wellness and well-being is
32:07
impacted by these things in ways that we hardly even see for example we in my
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work we hear from students often things like oh i just don’t go to
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the bat or i just don’t drink water during the day so you know kids navigating their 8 9 10 hours being
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at the school building without drinking any water you know the physical the mental impacts of that kind of uh
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situation you know day after day week after week you know those are some of the hidden
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ways that things like because a young person is usually dealing with so many
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things they’re not going to offer you the information that they’re not drinking water at all right they’re
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going to talk about things that seem more uh important in their minds or that are
32:56
more like whatever the crisis at the moment is they’re not going to tell you they haven’t had water at school for the
33:03
past like three months or whatever so you know it goes deeper than we might think those issues
33:09
of like gender neutral restrooms and things like that so thank you for bringing that up kathy
33:18
thank you thank you i think it’s really important for school board candidates to hear um
33:24
what what the families actually needs or and what the students actually need to appreciate you’re both bringing that up
33:30
um so if you have a question for a call um can you share some examples of when educators have helped you feel affirmed
33:37
and walk them welcomed in your school yeah so i
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am always really appreciative of my teachers who like make the effort to include me
33:50
because uh so i first came out to my friends
33:56
like end of seventh grade and i got very negative support from them so i had no
34:03
one who supported me however um in eighth grade my english teacher
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she had and she has like these weekly assignments we do on different articles
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and she included one on lgbtq youth and she on these reflections
34:22
she always includes a space for us to like put other information or opinions
34:27
and that’s actually where i technically came out to her and i just said i used say them and
34:34
afterwards she she came up to me privately and she like she asked what i needed
34:40
like what i was comfortable with and she also like apologized if she felt if i had felt as though she
34:47
wasn’t supportive enough um in the past and i
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was really appreciative of that because that was really the first time i felt like i was being respected
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and i feel like just her using my name and her
35:05
using my pronouns was in like the class made my friends and peers who previously
35:11
weren’t supporting me warm up to the idea that i was queer
35:16
and then uh and then freshman year i was in the gsa
35:22
and we did our um professional development day where
35:27
we had a we had like a training where the gsa uh students were the ones who actually
35:34
conducted the thea class and were the ones who engaged
35:40
and spoke to the teachers so i think it’s also really important
35:46
to um include our like queer youth in on those because
35:51
we are the ones that are experiencing this we know what we’re going through the best
35:57
and i really feel as though we are the ones who can best share and elaborate what we need
36:11
thank you quill um i appreciate that i know we’ve heard from other youth
36:17
um in other events we’ve had where they wish that school board members would listen to what they need
36:24
um and so i appreciate you being on and sharing that in kathy and nick sharing what students actually need so i think
36:32
one of the things that we’re hoping candidates and future school board members also get from this is that
36:38
you know to remember the students who are who are directly affected by policies that are passed
36:44
um so i think we have some time for questions so i’m gonna ask michelle
36:50
um if she could she’s been monitoring our chat with us and um if you can just
36:55
ask a few questions that have come up sure the first thing i want to elevate from the chat is quill you are
37:02
getting a lot of love in the chat so make sure you read those um
37:09
and then uh here are a couple questions that folks asked one of them was how can
37:15
we support students when school boards consider the rainbow a political image
37:22
and it cannot be displayed in a classroom
37:30
does anybody want to talk about that or what you could also talk about is ways
37:37
how do you support lgbtq plus youth in a district that might have something like that going on what are ways you can show
37:43
up for students
37:50
so now i can talk a little bit um so yeah that’s
37:55
definitely regional i feel like because um our district for example bought
38:00
rainbow flags and put them everywhere um and we have um
38:07
our p flag the hands out stickers and we’ve got luggage tags and i think 90 of the
38:14
student population has them on their backpack or coat or or whatever
38:19
um i think it’s you know it’s coming up with if your school is not okay with you
38:25
having a rainbow flag then don’t have rainbow stickers and rainbow pencils and
38:32
we write policies to be specific oftentimes we don’t think of every possible scenario so find the loopholes
38:45
yeah i i think you know i’m in an area where like appleton i would say is probably
38:51
like the most quote progressive area that along with green bay and then
38:56
it gets less and less so the further you go out so you know
39:02
as someone like in my work we are all often like kind of strategizing with
39:07
teachers and school district folks about like how you can do this when school board policies do things like this or
39:14
even go further like we think about these lawsuits that certain districts have come
39:21
under because of their like policies related to lgbtq students so we are
39:26
trying to strategize with folks as far as like how do you affirm students when you can’t do certain
39:33
things that would explicitly affirm them so you know if you’re an educator and you’re able at the first day of class to
39:39
like introduce yourself with your pronoun or if you know that you have a student
39:46
um who you know uses they them pronouns and
39:51
they are comfortable with that just like being explicit about modeling those of course
39:57
with the students consent and permission um yeah those are two small tips
40:10
thanks everyone um another one and i’m pretty sure this was inspired by quill
40:16
and i love this question um what are ways other district school
40:21
boards make themselves accessible to students and how can students
40:27
connect with admin and school boards
40:34
i think this is um something that’s been hard especially with covid not being able to have
40:40
students come in we used to have students come and present to like as ambassadors
40:45
um we did have our one of our high schools the
40:51
black student student council came to us
40:58
and asked could we have start introducing like a um black history
41:05
course and working with those students and their advisors we got professors to come in and i think
41:13
something that because we were so open and we were so able to
41:19
you know quickly have the kids come in i know for our board it kind of showed
41:25
off that we are willing to listen and especially with the children i know i go to as many events as
41:30
possible and when i go there i’m wearing my hrc pin or i’m wearing an hrc shirt
41:36
as a subtle way to be like i’m someone you could talk to if that was something a situation that you felt comfortable
41:42
with i’m not going to walk up to a kid and be like talk to me about xyz if it’s not the right situation
41:48
but allowing getting kids to know who you are and
41:54
accessibility in that way i think is going to be helpful
42:00
yeah i’m happy to go next um so all of our committees for the school board all have student reps on them
42:07
and they’re not just you know sort of passively there they are actively participating and they uh serve as a
42:15
conduit both directions so they’re bringing us news from the student body and they’re reporting back and we really
42:21
appreciate and value that partnership and we’re all listening when they talk because it really is special to have
42:27
them have that voice at the board level um also as a class project one of our seventh
42:33
grade ela projects is that they get to write to the school board members with some of the issues that they have
42:39
in their classrooms and in their buildings and then we get to respond back so i think just keeping that connection
42:44
open and active is really a good thing for our student body
42:54
thank you all so much um we’re also getting a couple questions that are somewhat similar which is um
43:03
you know some districts have anti-equity candidates running um and they’re saying
43:09
that districts don’t need equity statements because we don’t want to be labeling our students
43:16
and another question sort of in the same vein is
43:21
people who want to throw out books and dictate that inclusiveness is included in the curriculum are running for our
43:27
local school boards and being well funded and getting their messages out how can we encourage people to run on a
43:34
platform of inclusiveness given the climate out there
43:44
well um i decided to run partly because i’m like attracted to the fire like the
43:49
flame um but also because for me it’s a longer game like i love this community i’m
43:56
going to be here whether i win the election or not i’m going to
44:02
continue running whether i win this time or not um and you know part of what i want to
44:09
do through my candidacy is you know i do is to like inspire other folks
44:16
not because i’m so special but because i am pretty regular right i mean i am a
44:23
normal person who works full-time and this is something i care about so i decided to do it
44:29
and like i said earlier on i wasn’t expecting how much support i got so i’m hoping to
44:34
spread that message that you know there is a lot of support in our community i think kristin was talking about earlier
44:40
the loudest voices in the room aren’t always the most representative so we need to like cultivate more of those
44:46
quieter voices through our own example that like you know you can do it too
44:52
there is support for you if you want to step up and yeah so that’s what i would say about
44:58
that
45:08
um i think in the climate that we’re in right now it is really hard to get
45:17
well-composed people to run for school board because they don’t want to deal with like lydia said
45:23
building like that thick skin it’s ridiculous some of the stuff that we’ve gotten over the last year um i’m
45:29
literally sitting in front of all my quilting supplies because that’s my outlet for dealing with stuff um
45:36
but calling people out on you you know we have a person who’s coming to our school
45:42
to meetings and talking against transgender students to the point where i re we started talking about what our
45:49
public comic how do public comments what’s the level of first amendment rights because it’s
45:55
becoming atrocious that’s someone who is an ally and someone who loves our students
46:02
i don’t want to sit there in my space because
46:07
it looks like i’m allowing it to happen and although there are laws saying we can’t respond to a public comment
46:13
in that moment it’s something we’re trying to work out because i don’t think it’s okay to sit there as
46:20
a board member and make it appear as i’m okay with what he’s saying just because i can’t make a response in the moment
46:27
i’m thinking about turning my seat around while he speaks on that because i feel like a statement has to be said
46:34
and thankfully where i’ve been those candidates have
46:41
not been winning because at the end of the day people they’ll complain about budget they’ll complain about curriculum
46:48
but they also don’t want to lose that voice and when you’re on a board sometimes there’s moments where you can’t speak
46:54
and i think that has a lot to do with um those who want to make the loudest
46:59
noise in the room and nick i appreciate everything you’ve been saying tonight i’ve been writing down so many ideas and kimberly and leah
47:06
as well and laura just i’m always learning so i just have to put out there that this has been really wonderful for
47:11
myself as well um on the public comments you should
47:18
check out our statement um that we have out there um because we
47:24
we’ve had where people come and then they just start spewing and yep and you can’t respond and you have to just sit
47:30
there and not not really smile but you know you sit there and take it and
47:36
we very much call out you’re not allowed to do this you’re not allowed to do that and we run a lot of those types of
47:42
policies through wasb to make sure that we’re not going to get our hand slapped in any way
47:48
just let the smart lawyer people review it first but i would definitely check it can you
47:55
can you share what wasb is oh it’s wisconsin association of school boards
48:02
and they have a great legal department that will review policies um
48:08
we had a policy review done a few years ago and we’re still going through policies and making updates and
48:16
getting everything where it needs to be we looked at a policy last night that was written in 1979 and hasn’t been
48:21
looked at since so
48:28
well i think we have time for one more question and um i think i’d like to close with a
48:34
question um what advice would you give um to someone
48:40
running for school board like what lessons learned like maybe if you could go back in the time machine and you know
48:47
you could give yourself advice when you were starting on this journey uh what what tips would you give someone
48:53
if people just go around and give one tip um i would also like to know what quill
49:01
thinks we should do if they’re still available to respond
49:08
nick can you can you repeat the question because quill wasn’t paying attention
49:13
high schooler yeah for for you quill i was asking folks what advice they would
49:19
give to people running for office but what advice would you give to people running for office
49:26
i don’t no because i i’m honestly mostly focused on a like
49:34
teacher school level because that is where i feel like my voice
49:40
is most heard and listened to because the teachers that i talked to know me
49:47
and i feel like they are more easy to approach so i’m not sure
49:53
but i you know i liked it you know i think will has a very good point you know for
49:59
them they’re looking at at the at their school level
50:04
but at the school board level you know the school board is is overseeing all all the schools and there’s transgender
50:11
youth in the elementary schools you know so it’s it’s really the school board you know to be able to have the policies in
50:17
place for for all the schools because we have trans youth of all ages um and and
50:23
so uh wherever they’re at in their lives they need support
50:32
to jump into that that’s where you really have to have the
50:39
teacher advocate to to walk alongside with the parents
50:45
and the school board to help all the different parties because
50:51
there’s a lot of different levels that people people are at and so
50:56
you really have to kind of meet people where they’re at and help them through things
51:01
and also have them the school board understand
51:07
that you know lawsuits do happen over these things and they need to take it very seriously
51:14
and um as you were saying um you know look
51:20
talk with the attorneys talk with the school board um
51:27
i can’t remember what it is
51:34
i think my advice that i’ve learned over the years is that um back when i was running and in my early
51:40
years as a school board member i was really focused on just sort of
51:45
nodding and being comfortable with the discomfort if i heard someone saying something i didn’t
51:50
agree with and now i know that i have to use my outside voice they need to hear right away this isn’t acceptable
51:57
because the student body and the teachers need to see where their advocates are and they need to hear it very clearly
52:07
and to piggyback off what kimberly said don’t be afraid to ask questions if you
52:12
don’t know and don’t be afraid to be the descending voice even if you’re the only one
52:18
you will sleep better at night knowing that you voted your conscience even if it’s not gonna pass
52:24
so that’s that would be my advice
52:30
um i really appreciate those tips i will be taking them and my tip has nothing to
52:35
do with being lgbtq my tip is get a campaign manager
52:42
get people to help you don’t try to do it all yourself and that’s probably a less that’s a lesson
52:49
i’ve had to learn myself even though people were telling me to do all of those things
52:55
um yeah so get people to help you run
53:01
um quick tip don’t run during a pandemic uh second tip um
53:10
go big go bold everybody who runs has a why don’t forget that why why are you
53:16
there why are you what’s your purpose for it’s a lot of work it’s a lot more work than
53:22
people think it is and it’s not just one monday every other week it’s every monday and every public comment on
53:27
facebook and every email and at the end of the day you know who you
53:34
are don’t get lost in those loud voices don’t get lost in
53:39
the political climate just be you and you’ll be amazing
53:48
thank you everyone and michelle thank you for monitoring the questions i appreciate that um so we’re coming to the end but i
53:55
wanted to give our panelists if anybody had any final statements or any wrap up question
54:01
things that they would like to leave our attendees with wanted to give that opportunity to people
54:11
i really wanted to thank kathy and quill it’s very hard to put yourselves out there um i have a child who attends a
54:17
rainbow group so i really appreciate um i took so many notes on the random
54:23
things around me that i really appreciate as someone who’s always trying to learn um
54:28
and i just want to thank everyone who’s here tonight who made the effort on a tuesday night to
54:34
come sit in this amazing webinar to learn more and you’re always willing to reach out to me i’m on west allis school board so
54:40
you’re always welcome to find me
54:47
i just want to say thank you to everyone this is cup filling um it energized me to continue the good
54:55
fight over the next what 13 days oh my goodness so i just really appreciate
55:01
sharing the space with all of you tonight my thanks as well and thank you to the
55:08
participants that come because when you show up the school boards recognize that yes there is support for this and yes we
55:14
will continue
55:25
well i just want to offer my final thanks i want to thank all of the co-sponsors asp wisconsin
55:33
gsa fair wisconsin hrc um for
55:38
putting this together and thank you so much to our panelists all of you um this is you know we
55:44
couldn’t do it without you we really appreciate all that you’ve been willing to share with our
55:50
our attendees and just for those who are are listening we are going to be sharing
55:57
this video out later this week we also put together a toolkit some of it includes some the statistics
56:03
that laura mentioned things that you can share things that will help you in your final weeks
56:09
as you’re running for office um you also should get an email that talks about all of the um gives you gets
56:16
you connected to the different organizations as well but with that i just again thank you so much everyone for your participation
56:23
thank you for sharing your advice um thank you for putting yourselves out here and i really appreciate it so thank
56:29
you everyone could i just jump in here wendy i think
56:36
we also need to remember um our gay lesbian transgender
56:41
parents our families and forms uh you know i i worked with our district
56:48
quite a bit about wait a minute your your mother your father well wait a minute that doesn’t
56:54
really fit my family and so you know whether you’re a school board member or running for school board as
57:01
administrators and and and other uh there’s just a lot
57:07
that can be done to help families feel included
57:13
in whatever way we we define our families so it is
57:18
really a rich topic to to explore
57:23
thank you thank you lauren i did see an email a question about all the resources yes
57:29
everybody who rsvp’d and i also had a couple of school board candidates reach out to me and ask for the recording uh
57:36
everybody will get that access to it so thank you so much everyone and you have an amazing evening and good luck to the
57:42
final stretch of your campaign and have a great day thank you

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