On Friday, we shared a dramatic story about a Moms for Liberty endorsed school board member in Colorado who threw a tantrum over the school district… checks notes… recognizing Pride Month. Luckily, the M4L candidate quit and was replaced by a lifelong teacher who also happens to be the leader of a Red Wine & Blue group!
Well, this week we have more Moms for Liberty drama distracting from the real work of educating students. (It even centers yet again on LGBTQ+ students. Why is M4L so obsessed with students being themselves?) This time, the chaos is happening in Wisconsin. But unlike our story in Colorado, this one doesn’t have a happy ending yet.
A Red Wine & Blue member reached out to us to spread the word that M4L candidates have been taking over school boards in Wisconsin. In the Winneconne Community School District, 4 out of 7 current school board members are endorsed by the extremist group Moms for Liberty. One of the board members is actually married to the leader of their local M4L chapter.
With this conservative majority, the board engineered the ousting of a longtime and beloved district administrator, Dr. Peggy Larson. Their charge against her? That she supported a transgender student who wanted her preferred name and pronouns used in the school yearbook and at graduation. The student’s parents didn’t support her, but Dr. Larson wanted to make sure that she felt supported and seen.
What a monster, right? How dare an educator affirm and support a student.
But the Moms for Liberty controlled school board put Dr. Larson on administrative leave and just a few weeks ago, they forced her to take an early retirement. Community members and students alike were heartbroken by her departure.
“Dr. Larson has always been there for us,” said Winneconne High School student Demarcus McDaniel. “She has always been a person when I was struggling academically, mentally, or socially, I could go to talk with her.”
In response, community members started a recall petition against two board members over their ties to Moms for Liberty. They’d eventually like to recall all four M4L members on the board, but Wisconsin law doesn’t allow citizens to recall an official until they’ve served at least one full year of their term.
They collected more than enough signatures, but Kari Flagg, the board member in charge of receiving the signatures, decided they were invalid. She’s claiming that because the petitions were delivered to the district office rather than physically handed to her, those 4600 signatures don’t count.
If that sounds like nonsense, it is. The district office is the address of record for all school board members, and because none of them are physically present during business hours, this kind of drop-off is totally normal. And once the petitions were handed to an assistant at the district office, Ms. Flagg was informed immediately. Lawyers say that it’s completely legal to deliver recall petitions to school district offices, so this is nothing but a stall tactic.
Oh yeah, did we mention that Ms. Flagg is one of the four Moms for Liberty school board members? She just happens to be one of the members who hasn’t served a full year and thus can’t be recalled yet herself.
Right now, families in Winneconne are waiting for Ms. Flagg to do the right thing or they’ll pursue legal action. If all goes well, the recall petitions will be accepted, and the community will get the chance to vote for new school board members. Hopefully, they’ll disrupt the Moms for Liberty majority and bring in new members who care about all students in the district. They might even be able to bring back Dr. Larson.
This story yet again shows the importance of voting for our local school boards. With enough turnout, Winneconne could’ve prevented the Moms for Liberty bloc in the first place and a beloved educator would still have her job. It’s not too late to make that difference in your own community — let’s make these last 3 weeks before the midterms count!
