Quilcene’s school board certainly excels at attracting attention.

Normally, school board meetings are lightly attended and feature little or no public comment.

However, the Quilcene board’s anti-LGBTQ+ crusade has attracted large in-person and online audiences, who have offered extensive public comment.

In normal times, newspapers ignore school board meetings.

But since last fall, The Leader has run several front-page stories about the Quilcene board’s efforts to censor library materials, ban trans athletes from girls’ sports, and adopt a Bible study curriculum.

Columnists Jason Serinus and Marcia Kelbon and several letters to the editor have already commented on the board’s issues.

However, there is still more to say.

As a career educator, civics teacher, and union leader in a neighboring district, I have several messages for Quilcene’s board: 

First, do your job.

The voters elected you to improve education for Quilcene kids.

Instead of addressing crumbling buildings, you’re demolishing student and staff morale.

Studies show the surest way to improve student learning is to recruit, support, and retain great teachers.

Your ongoing anti-LGBTQ+ jihad is publicly embarrassing your district and community. 

The damage you’ve already done makes your students and staff feel unsupported.

If you inflict much more damage, no one will want to work or study there.

Second, put kids before politics.

Quilcene voters did not elect you to serve as foot soldiers in a national movement devoted to making LGBTQ+ children feel bad about themselves.

I hope you remember how hard and confusing adolescence is for everyone–even for straight, cisgender persons.

Now, consider the additional difficulty social rejection imposes upon LGBTQ+ teens, especially when that rejection comes from people in positions of power–like you.

Finally, if you imagine Christianity justifies your jihad against LGBTQ+ kids, then remember how Jesus spared the adulteress from stoning by the Pharisees (John 8:1-11).

Then, consider whether when it comes to enforcing ancient Mosaic laws, you are sinless and therefore qualified to cast the first stone. 

Third, act like you have some skin in the game.

When you as a school board member make decisions that hurt children, and the school-aged kids in your family are homeschooled, it is fair for people to ask if you’re intentionally sabotaging public schools.

 Prove them wrong.

Show you care about all Quilcene students like they are your own flesh and blood.

Fourth, find out what’s really going on in your school.

Stop watching Fox. Or Newsmax or OAN or whatever tinfoil-hat propaganda outlet has fed you false ideas about public schools.

Nothing you see there is true of Quilcene classrooms.

The best way to learn the truth is just to visit the campus.

Ask the principal or superintendent to show you around.

Tell them you want to see everything: the greenest rookie instructors and the most polished master teachers, the honor students and the kids facing the greatest academic challenges.

You’re going to discover that Quilcene has great students and staff who deserve your support.

Fifth, thank Viviann Kuehl.

She has been the sole voice of reason on your board this year.

 Kuehl consistently and patiently corrects factual errors, reminds you of your legal and ethical responsibilities, and tries to steer you back to supporting teaching and learning.

Finally, listen to your staff.

Cortney Beck, who teaches secondary English and special education and serves as president of the Quilcene Education Association, offered you excellent advice at the April board meeting.

She said, “Our students are watching, and what they see right now is a school board that is more focused on targeting LGBTQ students than addressing the real issues that impact teaching and learning in our classrooms.”

Beck said your denigration of trans people “violates your own district nondiscrimination policy.

“That policy exists to protect all students, and you’re not exempt from it.  

“When board actions contradict district policy, it erodes trust… in you as leaders.”

Beck, a mother of two, added, “I choose to send my children to Quilcene… because public schools are for everyone, I believe in our community, I believe in meeting kids where they are, and because I want my children to grow up in a school system that values education over ideology and inclusion over intolerance.

“As union president, I hear from educators who are afraid to speak up, worried about retaliation or harassment. 

“Since I’m the union president, I can’t be retaliated against,... so I am speaking for them. 

“I am speaking for the students who wonder if the adults in charge truly care about them, and for every parent who wants their child to feel safe, supported, and seen at school.

“Your job–our job–is to support students—all students.

“I encourage you to redirect your focus to what really matters: student learning, mental health, graduation rates, staff retention, and community engagement.

“Our students deserve better.”

Brian MacKenzie teaches history at Chimacum High School and serves as president of the Chimacum Education Association. The views expressed here are his own and not those of his employer nor his union.