Originally posted on IdahoEdNews.org on April 15, 2025

MERIDIAN, ID – All five West Ada School District trustees and the superintendent, most for the first time, commented Monday on the controversy surrounding the district’s order to remove inclusive posters because they violate a “content neutral” classroom policy. 

It was the school board’s first meeting since West Ada administrators last month made national headlines for ordering Sarah Inama, a history teacher at Lewis and Clark Middle School, to remove two posters. One poster read “everyone is welcome here” and included images of racially diverse hands. The second poster had a similar message and included the colors of a rainbow.

Inama defied the order, and the district gave her until the end of the school year to remove the signs from her classroom. Hundreds of people have since emailed the district and students staged a protest in support of the sixth-grade teacher. 

While two trustees previously made solo statements on the controversy — one in a social media post and the other in a podcast interview — neither the board nor the district’s central office has made a unified statement. Idaho Education News previously reported that trustees and administrators failed to reach a consensus on how to respond while declining interview requests from news outlets. 

Monday’s board meeting attracted a standing-room-only crowd. After nearly an hour of public comments, two trustees were unambiguous about their views on the district’s directive to remove the posters.

Board vice chair René Ozuna said she’s “in full support of the posters that were asked to be removed.” She noted that she previously voted in favor of the 2022 policy, which requires that classroom displays be “content neutral and conducive to a positive learning environment.”

“I did so to keep politics out of classrooms,” Ozuna said. “I still believe this is the right thing for our students. What I didn’t anticipate was that a message of inclusion or words in primary colors could be seen as political. I won’t accept that.”

Trustee David Binetti, on the other hand, said that the policy worked. It was right for Inama to put up the posters and right for administrators to ask that they be taken down, he said. While teachers are “subject to public scrutiny that simply does not exist in any other profession,” Binetti said, in “incredibly rare” instances, they abuse their positions of power to sway their students on political issues. 

“There’s been a repeated call to acknowledge a mistake, and I want to say in the clearest possible terms, I think that everything was done right here,” Binetti said.

The other three trustees were less clear about where they stand on how the policy was enforced.  

Board chair Lori Frasure said the world is “highly politicized,” and she can’t imagine what it’s like for a teacher who has to manage shifting political views. “I mean, it matters right now what kind of car I drive.” The best thing the district can do is keep this conflict out of the classroom, she said. 

“That, by no means, is to insinuate that all people should not be welcome in the classroom,” Frasure said. “That is just to say, the debate, the discussion of what is or isn’t political, that’s the piece that I would like to keep out of classrooms.”

Trustee Angie Redford offered sympathy for West Ada chief academic officer Marcus Myers, who has been “used as a political punching bag” for enforcing a policy he didn’t write. EdNews previously reported that Myers told Inama that the “everyone is welcome here” poster violated the district’s policy, and he later defended the decision on The Ranch podcast, saying that the signs would have been acceptable if they didn’t include hands with different skin colors. 

Myers has taken the “public brunt” of this, Redford said, but it’s the school board’s responsibility to craft policies. “Over the last month, I think it’s actually been an exclamation point for me as to why neutral classrooms are so important.”

Trustee Lucas Baclayon, whose family moved from Taiwan to Idaho seven years ago, recalled a TV show about an Asian child who was bullied for eating noodles at lunch. Baclayon said his child has faced racism at school, and he “absolutely” supports “the rhetoric that ‘everyone is welcome there.’” But he believes the decision to remove the posters was made “with the right intent.” 

“The results, maybe, didn’t pan out the way that everybody had hoped … But is there a discussion about moving forward? Of course there is, and so, I’m glad we have that opportunity.”

Frasure noted that the diversity of opinions among trustees illustrates why the board was previously silent. “In order for us to make a statement, we have to agree, and you can see we have different views.”

Board to review policy, superintendent speaks out

Later in Monday’s meeting, trustees launched a school board review of the “content neutral” classroom rules. It’s part of a broader appraisal of West Ada’s human resources policies, initiated prior to the poster controversy. The board will consider changes over the next several weeks. 

The review comes after the Idaho Legislature passed and Gov. Brad Little signed House Bill 41. The bill prohibits public school classrooms from having flags and banners that “represent political, religious, or ideological views.” 

The debate in Idaho’s largest school district over what’s considered “political” could be a precursor of what’s to come in public schools across the state. The new law goes into effect July 1.

West Ada Superintendent Derek Bub said Monday that the district’s new policy on classroom displays will adhere to the intent of HB 41 by protecting “the neutrality of the classroom” while also creating an appeal process that weighs community input. The appeal process would resemble the district’s procedure for challenged library books under last year’s House Bill 710, Bub said.

Reading from prepared remarks, Bub said that the intent of the current policy was to allow teachers to create “warm classroom environments, while steering away from distractions that exist in today’s educational landscape.”

“The truth is, we are educators. We are not politicians. We look at things from a different lens,” he said. “Each of us came into this profession to make a difference in the lives of kids, not get caught up in national debates. That said, we must also admit that we currently have a hyperpolitical world, and as much as we try to stay out of it, the reality is, almost anything can be considered political in today’s environment.”

Dozens of parents, students, teachers weigh in

Inama was among the 24 people who spoke about the poster controversy during the school board’s public comment period Monday.

Inama said she had yet to receive an answer on why the “everyone is welcome here” poster was deemed political or why it wasn’t considered “motivational.” Motivational posters are allowed under the current policy. 

“What is the political opinion? I still have not been told,” Inama said. “I have been told by my students that this poster has been comforting and motivational.”

Twenty other parents, grandparents, students and teachers — many wearing “everyone is welcome here” T-shirts — criticized the district for its decision and called for changes to the “content neutral” policy. Three people said they supported the current policy. 

Bradley Beaufort, a Japanese-American father of five West Ada children, told trustees that he’s concerned “you don’t welcome me and my children.” He called for the updated classroom display policy to include a committee review for material that raises concerns about neutrality. 

“I have had times that I was made fun of for the way that I looked,” Beaufort said. “I’ve also had to have recent discussions with my children about things that they’ve seen and heard in their classes and in the hallways. This is, unfortunately, still an issue. I, personally, would have appreciated a sign showing that all walks of life are welcome at West Ada.”