Tricia Johnson’s children started kindergarten and graduated high school in the same district where she’s worked for 16 years.
When they were younger, she filled in as a substitute. For the past five years, however, she’s taught classes on literacy and academic success at Festus Middle School in Jefferson County, a politically conservative area in Missouri where 65% of voters supported Donald Trump in the last election.
Johnson had never had a problem in the district until this school year. In September, she asked her students to research their learning styles and design their ideal workspaces -- an assignment she'd given several times before. Students created their designs on regular-sized pieces of paper, which Johnson displayed on a bulletin board in her classroom.
This time, one of her students’ designs showed two anime characters holding hands in a room. In the upper corner, the student put three small pride flags, each about an inch tall. On the evening of Sept. 16, Johnson says her principal, Jacob Munoz, called her at home to say one of her students' parents complained that she had displayed a picture of two girls in bed, kissing. She informed him that wasn’t true.
He went to investigate in her class and noticed the paper with the small pride flags.
When Johnson showed up at work the next day, the student’s work was missing from the board. She immediately took down the other projects.
“I can’t have one student left out,” she explained.
The principal asked to see her in his office.
She says he pointed to the flags on the student’s paper and said, “We can’t promote this.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with the picture,” she said.
“You know I’m a conservative Christian,” he responded, according to Johnson.
The next day, she received an electronic request from the superintendent and assistant superintendent to view her lesson plans, which she granted. Her principal gave her a disciplinary memo criticizing her teaching and judgment, and reprimanding her for having "sexually suggestive content" in her classroom.
She recalls the principal saying the anime characters in the student’s drawing were standing too close to each other. She told him that she didn’t think the school should be censoring student work.
“He asked me if I would have hung up a swastika or Confederate flag,” Johnson said. “Those are not remotely the same thing.”
He asked her to turn in her lesson plans in advance for him to review every week. Johnson followed the instructions given to her, but she refused to back down from supporting her student’s work.
By the end of October, she had filed a grievance against the district for discriminating against her student. She asked for the disciplinary note to be removed, for an independent investigation and for diversity training for all district staff.
“I felt like if I let this go, this would be happening to other kids, and I didn’t want that,” she said. “The first question the investigator asked me was, ‘Why did you choose this hill to die on?'”
His report found no evidence of discrimination.
She appealed to the school board. They listened to her side and eventually decided that the district had not violated any of the policies she outlined in her case. She filed a complaint in February with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Earlier this month, her principal informed her that they would not be rehiring her for the next school year. He gave her an annual review that said she was an ineffective teacher and unprofessional.
After that meeting, she went to her classroom and cried.
“I love my job,” she said. “I love teaching.”
When I reached out to Superintendent Link Luttrell about Johnson’s allegations, he said privacy laws prevented the district from speaking about any personnel issues. The district released a statement saying, “When any individual standards are not met, efforts are made to address those areas and work collaboratively with the employee to improve. It is disheartening when someone chooses instead to distribute a false narrative to discredit others.”
Johnson, who has shared the letters from her principal as well as her responses, says she knew that she might lose her job when she refused to back down.
“The whole reason I became a teacher is because I love kids, and I wanted to be a positive force in their lives,” she said. “If I let this go, then I’ve failed.”
Her daughter started a Change.org petition asking the district to rehire her mother; more than 3,600 have signed so far. She’s received countless supportive messages from current and former students.
“We stand behind you, Mrs. Johnson,” they said. “We’ve got your back.”
What a shame the district didn't have theirs.