My parents moved to Mobile Alabama from Ohio to follow my dads job. But I am appalled that today two of my elementary school level colleagues were harassed into fleeing their workplace. I’m lucky, as a high school government teacher I have a lot of cover to discuss these events and issues in depth. There have been a lot of harassing calls and emails this year, attacking teachers who present the famous media bias chart in their media literacy class, or who talk about climate change in biology, or political lies while teaching 1984.

This is all in response to the district’s decision to acknowledge that there was an attack on the nation’s capitol last week and that it was wrong. While we were discussing how to respond to this anonymous group that’s been sending vaguely threatening messages to the School Committee attacking teachers, the principal came into these two teachers’ classrooms and told them that the school had been getting threatening calls and they should all leave for their safety. At the moment this happened we were discussing a new community group that was created to “fix schools” and save the students from liberal indoctrination. Our monthly union board meetings are all on zoom right now, and several of us joined the meeting from our buildings (eta: this is about an hour after the school day ended). I’m a union rep in a suburban school of a very blue state.

Birmingham teacher zoom call