Exclusive: Teacher forced to transfer schools for not prioritizing certain races

A special education teacher filed a complaint against Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) for allegedly factoring in race when making employment decisions.

Kally Bishop, a former employee of the district, claims she was involuntarily transferred to another school because the district allegedly prioritized “culturally responsive practices” over effectiveness in the classroom, according to a complaint filed on Bishop’s behalf by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I loved my job at Thoreau Elementary and was heartbroken to be forced out after so many years there,” Bishop said in a statement. “No teacher or student should ever be discriminated against based on their race.”

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MMSD adopted a new scoring system in 2021 for determining which teachers should be designated “surplus” and involuntarily transferred when one school has too many educators. The new rubric heavily weighed teachers’ “culturally responsive practices,” or how much they prioritized certain races over others, the complaint alleges, and the new method lessened the weight of teacher seniority in making the decision.

“As culturally responsive teachers, educators are expected to engage in ‘inside’ work that examines their own racial identities,” the school district’s website explains.

MMSD did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The method requires teachers to recognize “needs for Social Emotional Learning,” examine “implicit biases,” and “address racial and cultural identity.” MMSD has been open about its effort to use such practices as a means to retain “teachers of color.”

The new method did not include any metric for a “teacher’s effectiveness or performance,” the complaint found, and served to overturn the old method of considering seniority because the school board claimed it “disproportionally” benefited white teachers.

Bishop has consistently received glowing reviews and praise from the school. Her most recent full review in 2022 earned her the highest two scores in every category, and she was described by the principal at the time as having a “superhero quality” for her “passion and care for children,” according to the complaint. She was told her work was “consistently on point and highly beneficial for student growth and overall care,” and she was praised for the relationships she developed with parents and community partners.

“Kally is not just a critical ingredient in this work; she is often the lead chef in making sure all are working together,” the principal at the time allegedly told Bishop.

In other reviews from 2024, Bishop was even scored highly in “equity” categories, with the school noting the teacher provided “a myriad of supports” for students and was “super responsive to the students,” the complaint alleged.

However, when the surplus decision was made, Bishop was given the second-lowest score in the “culturally responsive practices” category, and the school refused to explain the decision or show her the rubric scores she was given, according to WILL.

“MMSD’s hyper focus on race is both wrong and illegal,” Luke Berg, WILL deputy counsel, said in a statement. “The unfortunate and entirely predictable result is the District losing one of its best teachers at the expense of its most vulnerable students. We hope that this case exposes how the District’s rubric is being applied.”

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