August 22, 2024

August 22, 2024

To Our District 67 and District 115 Faculty and Staff:

As the drumbeat builds toward Election Day on November 5, I want to take this opportunity to revisit our district practices regarding the discussion of politics in our schools.

Constructive Discussion and Deliberation

As public employees responsible for educating students, we have an obligation to establish the norms for civil discourse in our learning environments. Despite the divisiveness of the electoral season, there is still room to engage, discuss, and reflect in a respectful manner. It is incumbent upon us as educators to set a respectful tone when acting in our roles as public employees, supporting an efficient, disruption-free educational environment.

The Fundamentals

Our employees do not shed their First Amendment right to express their political views just because they are public employees, but there are important limits to the free speech rights of public employees. The key fundamentals are:

• If you are speaking in an official capacity (within the duties of your job), your speech will not have the same protection as speech in your role as a private citizen.

• What you communicate inside the classroom or when otherwise acting in your role as a public employee is considered speech on behalf of the school district and, therefore, may not be entitled to such protection.

• Certain types of speech outside the school also might not be protected. Specifically, speech by a public employee acting as a public employee no matter where it occurs, such as off-campus at an extracurricular event. For example, a coach traveling with a team to an event makes political statements at the hotel while supervising students and wearing LF gear.
• Even if a public employee speaks as a private citizen and addresses a matter of public concern outside of the school environment, that speech may not be protected if the employer’s interests in an efficient, disruption-free workplace outweigh the employee’s right to free speech.
  

Your Role as Non-Partisan Discussion Leader

I am not asking you to avoid political conversations with your students. You have an important role as a discussion leader. To model a respectful tone and avoid disrupting the educational environment, you are asked to remain nonpartisan and neutral when discussing politics and the election with students or when otherwise acting in your role as a public employee. As always, we are responsible for establishing guardrails for conversations among students and others in the school community that are free from hate, intimidation, bullying, and fear. Please also remember the importance of assessing whether your off-campus speech, especially speech that occurs online, could have a disruptive effect on the school environment.

A Teachable Moment
Many of our students are at a key developmental stage, forming their political views and identities. Students learn from many “teachers” in their lives, both those in our District's schools and those outside of school in their home and community settings. In this way, it is important to give them the time and space they need to respectfully listen, question, and seek to understand their peers' multiple perspectives.

How our students learn to respond to those who disagree with their views matters. I am confident in your ability to model and encourage shared inquiry, listen respectfully to questions, and make a genuine effort to understand. At a time when opinions and perspectives may feel increasingly divergent, this is perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can provide to our students.

Sincerely,