A group of teachers in a local school district have banded together to write an open letter to their superintendent, calling for unity in her leadership instead of divisiveness.
Teachers in District 196 — which includes schools in Rosemount, Eagan, and Apple Valley — have experienced Superintendent Mary Kreger requesting “the support of as many staff members as possible to support [her] political agenda,” according to the letter obtained by Alpha News.
“Remember that you are leading us as educators, and your job is not to show a political bias, but to create unity,” the letter states, adding that “there is much more that unites us than divides us in our vision for the community.”
The teachers told Alpha News that they “have been experiencing an increasingly charged political environment” in their workplace. They are consistently “bombarded with political messages from the union [and] Superintendent Mary Kreger, as well as [the] antiracism and equity teams,” they said.
The letter comes in the midst of several heated school board meetings in District 196, in which students and parents have begun speaking out against critical race theory and its influence in their schools. The district responded by limiting public comment at the monthly school board meetings.
“Don’t buy into the lie that if someone disagrees with your approach, or has a different perspective, that they are racist or worthy of losing their job, or should be publicly canceled,” the teachers write to Kreger.
They also state that some of the teachers in the district do oppose critical race theory. This is because they “firmly believe that [the CRT] approach teaches division instead of diversity and separates instead of unifies.”
The group of teachers told Alpha News that “at the direction” of Kreger, educators are teaching “through the lens of a political bias or personal commentary.”
Those who do not support and defend critical race theory and Black Lives Matter rhetoric “are in constant fear of losing [their] jobs,” the group said, which is why they have asked to keep their identities anonymous.
“The individual letters we have sent have resulted in no change and no response” from the superintendent or the school district, the teachers told Alpha News.
These teachers wrote the letter because they “want our neighbors and community to know what is happening in our school district and what is being taught,” they said.
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Megan Olson
Megan Olson is a 2020 graduate of the University of Minnesota with degrees in political science and history. She works in public affairs in addition to serving on the Legislative Advisory Council for School District 196. She is also on the school board for FIT academy, a charter school in Apple Valley.
