Just a few days after the election, Principal Monica Asher made a fateful decision.
The leader of the Olentangy Orange High School in Delaware County, Ohio, sent an email to her staff Nov. 11, detailing how the presidential election’s results left her reeling, although she didn’t explicitly name Donald Trump.
“I have to be honest, I am not entirely sure how to tell you how to move forward. What I can tell you is that I am here with you and my values have not changed,” she wrote, noting that many of her colleagues and staff members may find it hard to engage with other colleagues “that don’t share your views.”
Soon after, she was put on paid administrative leave by her school district.
By Nov. 14, her note had been shared widely on the social media platform X, and reposted by the conservative account Libs of TikTok, among others. The Olentangy school district put Asher on administrative leave the next day. The district confirmed to Education Week that Asher had been disciplined for violating the school board’s policy on staff ethics, which restricts employees from using their position for “partisan political or religious purposes.”
While Asher is now back at her job, the incident raises questions about how, and to what extent, public school employees should address big political shifts in the country, like the contentious presidential election.
This isn’t the first time this year that school leaders have been put on notice for purportedly using their professional platforms to convey personal political leanings: In March, Texas’ attorney general Ken Paxton sued seven school districts, alleging that a handful of administrators had engaged in electioneering before the March 5 primary elections.
Asher’s case raises similar questions about what constitutes “political speech” for school and district leaders in an especially divisive political environment.
“It’s really tricky for school leaders to balance their First Amendment rights [with] district policy and show support for their community in this environment,” said Katy Anthes, the director of FORWARD, a Denver-based teacher training and advocacy platform. As Colorado’s former education commissioner, Anthes has firsthand experience trying to craft policies that cover all instances of what’s considered political speech.
“It’s hard because anything can be considered political, and people can make assumptions about what you mean,” she said, and the problem is exacerbated by social media posts.
As a school leader, though, it may also be tough to stay quiet on issues that could directly impact students and staff under a new administration—like its looming plans for mass deportation or repealing protections for transgender students.
“As a leader, you don’t want to ignore the big events going on in the world,” Anthes said.
School leaders have to balance reassurance with political neutrality
In their professional capacity, school leaders don’t enjoy the same free speech rights that other private citizens do, said Mark Paige, a professor of education law and policy at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. They aren’t at liberty to show their political affiliation at work.
“If you are electioneering, that’s clearly political speech. But if you’re saying something like ‘I wish Congress would pay more attention to this issue,’ that’s probably political speech,” he said.
Asher’s comments in her newsletter, though, may fall in a grey area.
“As a leader, she was trying to express to half the people in the building—to extrapolate from the results—that we are disappointed in a polarized time. But she didn’t say she was disappointed because Kamala lost, or Trump won,” said Paige.
What makes this more complicated is that the guidelines for political speech—in employee handbooks or codes of conduct, for instance—were largely written in a less divisive political context, said Paige.
School leaders must balance reassuring their communities without sounding too political.
“Some of the rhetoric [from the campaign] makes it difficult for schools to stay out” of discussing the results, said Tom Hutton, the former executive director of the Education Law Association, a nonprofit organization that works on legal issues that impact education. “But there’s a need for some political sophistication in handling controversial topics.”
Principals can send out messages of reassurance, Hutton said, but should avoid framing them in a way that’s only sympathetic to one side.
How principals handle accusations of political speech
Outside an election year, too, principals have faced criticism from parents for wading into politics.
Chris Young, the principal of North Union High School in Newport, Vt., decided to address the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2023, when a large group of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building in the District of Columbia.
Young sent a note to parents and staff about the “facts” of the case, where he identified that Trump had “incited the crowd.” Young said he wanted to give teachers a resource on how to talk about the attack if students raised questions in class.
Parents were quick to react to the note—and to Trump’s mention in it.
“I got a couple of emails that told me to stay in my lane. The emails questioned why, as I principal, was I getting political,” Young said.
Young said his district’s leaders didn’t get involved and supported his decision to send out the note. To address the parents’ criticisms, Young called each of them personally and had a “civil” discussion. “We agreed to disagree about some things, but we both grew from the process,” Young said.
He still stands by his decision to send the email, and the facts he presented. It’s important for school leaders to feel comfortable communicating with their staff and community about big things that are happening in the country, Young added, “because if we don’t do that, then the conversation ends, and people are afraid.”
Other principals look to school policies for guidance. Tracie Anderson Swilley, the principal of Fairfield Central High School in Winnsboro, S.C., and the National Principal of the Year, checks in with her superintendent before she sends out staff or public memos on controversial topics.
Anderson also stressed the thin line between an educator’s professional role and personal beliefs. “I just think educators are seen in a different light,” she said. “Once you’ve put it out there, it’s out of your control.”
What districts can do to prepare for heated political moments
District policies on employee speech may get more difficult to craft when its easy to turn someone’s comments into social media fodder, like in Asher’s case.
It may be impossible for districts to create guidelines that cover all potential scenarios, given the heightened scrutiny on educators.
Instead, superintendents and other district leaders should send out reminders to staff before elections, inaugurations, or other politically tense periods, Anthes said. The Olentangy district had sent a memo, in September, to its staff before the election, telling them to separate their personal politics from their professional role.
“My advice to leaders during this time is since half the country voted one way and half voted another, you need to do your best to speak to both of those realities. Or not speak at all to the politics but reaffirm what the district’s values are,” Anthes said.
Some of these values could be respecting and listening to the other side.
If school leaders are keen to address any political moments with their teachers, Anthes suggests doing it in person during a staff meeting. That way, there’s a lesser chance that their words might be misconstrued.
Some of Trump’s promised actions might spur principals to speak out, treading the line between neutrality and reassurance carefully. Hutton believes that principals will “just have to take the lumps” if their messages of safety to their students or staff are interpreted as biased. “Their obligation to create a safe space for students supersedes the rhetoric,” he added.
So far, Young’s community and district have backed his decisions to make immigrant students feel safe by reaching out with counseling and resources for their families in the wake of the election, he said. But he is aware that principals are now on the political frontlines and vulnerable.
In the case of policies that affect his students, “I would have to find my own moral compass and decide what it is that I’m comfortable doing, regardless of what the consequences might be,” he said.
