“But what were you wearing, Andrea?”
It was a letter from Mr. Principal, but I heard the voice of my college dean.
Epithets deluged my work email inbox.
Bitch. Racist. Cunt.
My junk mail overflowed with multiple unwelcome welcomes from Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers.
A measured low voice on my landline at 2 A.M. recited my home address.
I told my principal about the first email.
“But what were you wearing, Andrea?”
His words were professional, but I heard it.
attention whore
I apologized for the caller who threatened to come to school and take care of me. Then, in the afternoon, I walked alone through the parking lot to my car. I never bothered him again.
What follows is my response to Mr. Principal’s reprimand.
Dear Mr. Principal and Ms. HR,
Over the past five years, I have spoken regularly at school board meetings to advocate for issues of equity and equality. My actions have contributed to policy protections for LGBTQ staff and students. I have also seen my advocacy aid with the creation of a cabinet level equity department within Loudoun County Public Schools. I successfully lobbied for the preservation of diverse classroom libraries and for funding equity leads at each school. Materials such as handouts and county-designed tests used by LCPS Latin teachers were reviewed through a lens of equity and revised after I repeatedly exposed the overt and covert ways that county Latin materials perpetuated curricular violence. Due to a student concern that was brought to me and in light of a lack of policy surrounding student pronoun usage, I brought this issue to the forefront at the county level, contributing to an important discussion still ongoing as the state releases new guidelines for school districts.
In other capacities, I have served as the vice chair of the Minority Students Achievement Advisory Committee. I facilitated a book club co-sponsored by that committee and the Loudoun Education Association designed to explore different perspectives, confront biases, and promote inclusive teaching strategies. I have led a county-wide professional development workshop for the World Languages and Cultures department on practical and immediate ways to democratize the classroom. Currently, I am facilitating an equity book club at [school].
Until [above mentioned meeting], I received no official indication from the county that my advocacy work was unwanted. The March 16th article in the Daily Wire, rather than reporting facts, expressed half-truths – unsurprising given that the Daily Wire is not a real news source and gathers ‘facts’ from “experts” such as Parents Against Critical Theory and its co-brand The Virginia Project – a group which believes that the violence at Charlottesville in 2019 and the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6 of this year were hoaxes propagated by the left.
The “hit list” discussed by the Daily Wire article was no more than a list of people and their aliases who were known to be against equity and initiatives for inclusion and diversity in school spaces. The images shown in the article were cropped and photoshopped together to propagate the myth that members of that body were being harassed when in fact those depicted in the images and mentioned in the article were the ones harassed and doxxed.
My social media usage reflects my personal opinions and my advocacy, but it does not ever advocate for harassment, discrimination, or censorship. Additionally my advocacy aligns to the stated goals of the LCPS equity statement. I strive to call for accountability and actionable change on every level in the educational system, from classroom to school to county to state to national organizations to international textbook companies.
While all of the above are true, it is also true that I am first and foremost accountable to my students. Maybe that is considered inflammatory to say, but I am in the business of education because of my commitment to the minds of the future. I want to do right by my students and show them what it means to live an examined life. In addition to achieving curricular excellence and demonstrating academic growth, they need to learn how to apply critical thinking skills in the world beyond the classroom and to understand that equity statements are more than words – they have actionable meaning. My class motto is “You Belong Here”, and my hope is that every child understands that I will fight for them and their right to be in this space whatever the future may hold.
My advocacy, such as it is, has been ongoing for five years and has changed very little in that time. My focus has always been on the students, and the first and only time that I have heard anything official about my advocacy work was a meeting [mentioned above] with Mr. Principal and Ms. HR. In this meeting, Mr. Principal stated that the result of my actions had “cast a shadow on the good work being done at [school]” and that “some people” were accusing me of violating policies even though when directly asked, Mr. Principal stated that I had not violated any school board policy. Nonetheless, I was informed that a summary of the meeting would be going in my file to officially note the ‘incident’ and “expectations going forward”.
I request that this letter be placed in my file to put these events in proper context.
Respectfully,
Andrea Weiskopf
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