Melissa Tempel’s first grade class at Heyer Elementary School in Waukesha County, Wisconsin has spent weeks preparing for their upcoming spring concert.
Tempel and her co-teacher, bilingual instructors at the school, wanted the concert to have a theme of unity and world peace. Among the songs they selected: “It’s a Small World”, sung in Spanish, and “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles.
The students were also set to perform “Rainbowland,” a 2017 duet by Miley Cyrus and her godmother, Dolly Parton, with lyrics advocating for inclusion. Tempel began rehearsing with his students as soon as another faculty member suggested the song, and Tempel and her co-teacher approved it. His first graders, he said, need all the time they can to memorize the songs before the concert, just before Mother’s Day.
“My students loved it right away,” Tempel told CNN of her classroom’s reaction to “Rainbowland.”
But one day after the students learned the song, Tempel said the school administration asked him to remove “Rainbowland” from the concert. In a statement, the district said he asked that the song be removed because its lyrics “could be considered controversial” under a school board policy on controversial topics in the classroom.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to live in paradise, where we’re free to be exactly who we are?” Cyrus and Parton sing. “Living in Rainbowland, where you and I go hand in hand. Oh, I’d be lying if I said this is okay, all the pain and hate here.”
Representatives for Cyrus and Parton did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
“It’s really about if we could love each other a little better or be a little nicer, be a little sweeter, we could live in the land of the rainbow,” Parton said of the song in 2017, while Cyrus separately noted that some of the letters agree. to “different races, genders and religions”.
“(It would be cool) if we all came together to create and said, ‘Hey, we’re different, that’s awesome, let’s not change to be the same, let’s stay different but come together anyway.’ Because a rainbow is not a rainbow without all different colors,” Cyrus told NME.
Tempel said that “Rainbowland” is not “just a song”.
“We are trying to support inclusion,” he said. “The love and acceptance piece, and being who you are, I don’t think there’s anything political about it.”
According to Waukesha School District policy, a “controversial issue” is one that “may be the subject of intense public debate” or may have “political, social or personal and/or community impacts,” among other criteria. When contacted by CNN, Waukesha School District Superintendent James Sebert did not specify why “Rainbowland” was considered controversial.
US school districts remove rainbow images
Tempel, who worries that the “Rainbowland” ban is tied to broader efforts to curb discussion of LGBTQ2S+ issues in classrooms, said school district officials have tried to remove other references to rainbows in schools. She said that last year, administrators asked teachers across the district to remove the rainbow decorations and stop wearing rainbow lanyards or clothing.
Sebert said some signs were removed in accordance with the policy that resulted in the “Rainbowland” being banned, but he did not specifically address the rainbow signs. He told CNN that the district has its own “Commitment to All” poster in both English and Spanish to reinforce that students are “respected,” “belong” and “have a voice.”
The Waukesha County school board was more explicit with its guidance on LGBTQ2S+ students, earlier this year passing a resolution encouraging teachers to avoid using a student’s nickname or preferred pronouns unless they have received approval. in writing from the student’s parents.
US school districts are increasingly limiting the ability of teachers to discuss LGBTQ2S+ issues with their students at all grade levels. In Florida, a law dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by opponents prohibited teachers from discussing sexuality and gender identity with students in kindergarten through third grade.
Earlier this year, USA Today reported that school districts in Delaware, Ohio and Wisconsin, among others, have banned teachers from displaying Pride flags. And school districts in states like Texas, Louisiana and Michigan have faced bans on books that include LGBTQ2S+ characters or themes.
In the Kettle Moraine school district, also in Wisconsin, teachers were barred from displaying Pride flags or using pronouns in their email signatures, when school district officials reinterpreted a longstanding policy that prohibits “partisan politics, sectarian religious views or self-serving propaganda,” CNN reported last year.
After “Rainbowland” was banned at Heyer Elementary, another faculty member suggested that Tempel and her co-teacher replace the song with “Rainbow Connection,” Kermit the Frog’s famous anthem about hope and reaching for goals. dreams. But that song was also initially banned, until parent members of the Alliance for Education in Waukesha addressed the ban with school staff and administrators eventually reversed the ban, Tempel said.
The concert will go ahead as planned, with students singing “Rainbow Connection” instead of “Rainbowland,” a result that has the “full support of the superintendent,” according to the statement from the school district that Sebert shared with CNN.
Tempel and teachers remain committed to inclusion
Samantha Siebenaller, a mother whose son is in Tempel’s co-teaching class, praised the Heyer Elementary School faculty for “their dedication to creating an environment where inclusion thrives despite the Board.”
Siebenaller said in a statement that some members of the Waukesha School Board have “embarrassed our community … with their lack of commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.”
CNN has reached out to Waukesha School Board President Kelly Piacsek for comment.
Tempel, for her part, has not removed rainbows from her classroom. Her students were disappointed when they learned they would no longer sing “Rainbowland,” but she remains committed to showing her support for inclusion in different ways. She spoke about the song ban on Twitter, drawing thousands of eyes to her school and her upcoming concert.
She told CNN that the most important thing to her is being there for the children she teaches: “making sure my students feel safe and supported at school, and that their identities are appreciated, no matter how they identify.” .