CASPER — A woman sitting in the back of the room at the state superintendent’s conference on Tuesday raised her hand and announced to the crowd that she had quit teaching a year ago. 

“It’s because of this,” the woman said, gesturing to the audience. 

With just a couple months left on his term, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Brian Schroeder gathered a crowd of like-minded people on Tuesday to host a conference on the “sexualization of children” in schools. 

“We are living in unprecedented times, like nothing we’ve ever faced in our nation’s history,” Schroeder said. “The issue we seek to address here today is both unsettling and disturbing. Or at least it should be.” 

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Star-Tribune after the conference that there’s a “severe lack of trust for teachers.” 

Tears filled her eyes. 

“Nobody would argue that we need to sexualize children,” she said. “All this is doing is demonizing teachers.” 

Other educators responding to Schroeder’s conference shared similar sentiments about the event. 

Michael Stedillie, a retired teacher and school board candidate in Natrona County, said that he wishes critics would “come to school and actually see what’s going on.” 

“I find it interesting that some of the critics to whom I have spoken with, by their own admission, have not set foot in a classroom for years,” he said. 

Stedillie was a teacher for 41 years before retiring and becoming a substitute teacher in Natrona County. He said he’s spent the past few weeks subbing for an eighth grade language arts class, teaching reading comprehension and critical thinking. 

“It kind of annoys me when people say that we have to get back to the basics,” he said. “We’ve never left the basics.” 

Getting “back to the basics” is a common rallying cry around education these days for parents concerned that their kids are being indoctrinated and taught political and “gender ideology” at school. 

Schroeder has also repeatedly raised concern that Wyoming schools are becoming a place where educators are imposing their personal ideologies on students. 

In response to Schroeder’s conference, Natrona County Education Association President and former teacher Dirk Andrews said in a Facebook post that it’s against Professional Teaching Standards Board code of conduct for teachers to push their personal ideologies on students. 

“I would encourage anyone who feels schools are pushing our personal ideologies on students to reach out to our educators and to visit our schools,” he wrote. “I believe the statements made by the current state superintendent were made to divide us, when in all (honesty) we want to work together.” 

Stedillie also said he sees a different picture than what was portrayed during the conference. 

“You can walk up and down the hallways, and you’re going to see math being taught, you’re going to see reading being taught,” he said. The teachers he knows are “doing their absolute level best” to give kids “the education they deserve.” 

“I think it would be really nice if society in general were to recognize that and give them a pat on the back once in a while.” 

John Trohkimoinen, a retired teacher who taught history at Natrona County High School, said he hadn’t personally felt that narratives impacted his work as a teacher. But he’s talked to other teachers, particularly those who are mid-career, who “feel like they’re at crossroads,” questioning what to do with their career, if it’s time to get out, if they should stick with it. 

“I think with a lot of things that are going on, people are starting to wrestle with that a little bit,” he said. 

A handful of educators from across Wyoming doesn’t necessarily represent where all Wyoming educators stand with regard to Schroeder’s continued battle against the “sexualization of children” in schools. 

But there is data that sheds light on what a larger group of Wyoming teachers feels about its profession in general right now. 

Trohkimoinen pointed to the University of Wyoming and the Wyoming Education Association study released in June, which showed that 65% of surveyed teachers would quit their jobs now if they could. (Trohkimoinen himself answered the survey questions.) 

“I think it’s important for school boards and superintendents and people who are involved in teacher retention to be looking at (the survey results) and scratching their head saying, ‘OK, what can we do to make things better?’” he said. 

More than three-quarters of respondents to another recent survey of school districts by the Wyoming School Board Association said they consider a lack of respect and trust shown toward educators as a top factor hurting hiring and retention. 

Trohkimoinen said it seems that recognition of “the good work that’s done everyday” in schools has “taken the backseat.” 

In his more than three-decade career as a teacher, he had never experienced the level and kind of attention that’s surrounding schools and educators in Wyoming right now. There have always been issues out there, but they have mostly been “singular,” he said. 

But this time, “things have gotten lumped together”: fears about child sexualization; Moms for Liberty wanting to ban books; people talking about critical race theory and “how evil that is.” 

“This is the first time I’ve seen it lumped together like that,” he said. “It seems like it’s just a general attack on public education, and I’ve never seen a thing with this intensity.” 

And it’s not always easy for people on different sides of these various concerns to have conversations and come to some sort of agreement. 

Christy Gerrits, a retired seventh grade science teacher and LGBTQ ally, said it has been challenging for her to talk with people with differing views concerning the controversial topics highlighted during Schroeder’s conference. 

One woman, she said, called her “amoral” when Gerrits tried to talk with her. 

She feels disappointment. She feels anger. She’s saddened. 

At this point, Gerrits said that “electing the right people to the school board, to the commission, to the Legislature” is the only viable way she sees of moving forward. 

“It’s just horrendous what they’re doing to the LGBT community,” she said. “I feel like this is an issue being brought to Wyoming by outside groups, the radical-right agenda.” 

But other educators who spoke with the Star-Tribune were more optimistic. 

“There is always room for people to sit down and have a productive conversation,” Stedillie said. 

The question, Trohkimoinen said, is when to have those conversations. 

He thinks right now, with the general elections coming up, isn’t the best time. 

“This is just my take on it, but sometime after the election, once things have cooled off a bit, I think somehow, maybe gently, people need to start the conversation about what we need to do,” he said. “I think there’s always time to be able to visit. The question is how do you start the dialogue? And if I had that answer, I’d go to the bank right now.”