If this policy gets removed, I will continue to believe that each and every employee in our district will continue to give their all for students. I don’t believe it takes a policy for that to happen.”

Clerk Melissa Millner

The equity policy reflects commitment to ensuring every student regardless of race, background, and disability has opportunity to thrive.”

Director Mark Zuzek

Teachers hissed, booed and shouted as the ISD 200 School Board voted 3-2 to sunset Policy 100 Equity and Diversity and replace it with the district’s new strategic plan at the Wednesday, March 26 school board meeting. The move was a pivot from the adoption of the policy less than four years prior when formalizing the virtues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into school policy was important enough for the then-board to workshop the language for months so that it could pass unanimously.
It is a shift not just in Hastings, perhaps, but as a country which has seen increased animosity over DEI, especially under the second Trump administration.

Teacher trust
Dozens of teachers, residents and community members filled the middle school media center for the regular school board meeting, crowding the normally empty room. Extra chairs were brought into the room to accommodate all attendees. Red-clad teachers graded papers from back tables and stood holding signs in support of Policy 100.
Residents and teachers from inside the district and out spoke to the importance of the policy at public comment before the board. Former school board member Lisa Hedin read a letter from ISD 200 teachers, signed by 104 of them. The letter started by asking the school board to trust educators, referencing the school board oversight into the adoption of the Wit and Wisdom curriculum, which was recommended by educators, then revised and reviewed before its eventual adoption: “You doubted their expertise and voted to have them redo much of the review process. The result was that our district adopted Wit and Wisdom. The consequences are that our district spent unnecessary funds, and educators felt disrespected.
“The real challenges do not stem from library books, Tribal Nation flags, empowered student clubs, or policies that uphold the dignity and worth of all students,” continued the letter.
The 104 teachers who signed the letter of support for Policy 100 represent more than 40% of teaching staff in the district.
The distrust between the teachers of ISD 200 and the school board isn’t a new one. It was reflected in the single black mark on the otherwise stellar school perception survey discussed late in 2024. While overall, Project Manager at School Perceptions Daren Sievers called the review among “the best I’ve ever given,” at the Nov. 20, 2024 school board meeting, but one statistic stood out: teacher confidence in the school board.
With a 56% participation rate of district staff, to the statement “The school board is doing what it takes to make our district successful,” less than half of respondents agreed with a score of 2.99 out of 5. To be clear, in the scale used by School Perceptions, anything below a 3 out of 5 represented a disagreeing opinion, meaning that just in the past year, more than half of staff respondents disagreed to some extent with the statement. That figure fell 3.24% from 2023-2024, a margin that reflects a notable change, according to Sievers.
It was a point noted by School Board Chair Carrie Tate at the meeting: “The parents think the school board is doing the right thing. The staff not so much.”
That distrust was on full display as teachers shouted “shame,” and booed as they filed out of the room after the vote, forcing the board to call a recess before continuing with other matters.
Further distrust of teachers beyond the school board and in the community was a point underscored by Clerk Melissa Millner when speaking about her vote to sunset Policy 100.
Clerk Millner referenced messages she received from community members “literally scared to speak up or put anything into writing against something like this simply because they are worried about what that would do to themselves and their work environment […] as well as what speaking up might do to their kids’ grades in school.”
President of Education MN-Hastings and middle school teacher Lori Best denied the accusation that ISD 200 teachers would lower student’s grades based on political beliefs: “Our students are graded on the quality of their work, not their politics or the politics of their families as they have been and will continue to be.”
“It’s ridiculous,” said Michelle Munger, a special education teacher who has been at the district for more than two decades. “I’m in and out of classrooms all day and all teachers do is amplify students’ voices.”

Federal funding
Social studies teacher at Watershed High School in Richfield, Hastings resident, and ISD 200 alumni, Adam Kolodziej spoke to the threat to federal funding that has dominated much of the conversation around sunsetting the policy in recent weeks.
According to Vice Chair Jessica Dressely, the policy came up for regular review through the three-year policy review cycle and was flagged for sunsetting before the Feb. 14 “Dear Colleague Letter” from Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor that threatened loss of federal funding. The policy was flagged for sunsetting because of lack of a Minnesota School Board Association (MSBA) model policy, and lack of legal reference in other district policy, according to Dressely.
Despite that, worry over loss of federal funding has dominated much of the conversation regarding sunsetting the policy.
At the Feb. 26 school board meeting, Clerk Millner made that connection explicitly saying she was concerned over, “President Trump talking about if you have diversity, equity and inclusion in your school, we are going to take away federal funding. And someone asked me, ‘are you fearful of that?’ darn right I am,” said Millner.
Kolodziej spoke directly to this fear: “It is true that the president has spoken out against these policies of diversity, equity and inclusion and threatening to withhold federal funding to districts that contain these policies, but these facts don’t line up with what the administration can legally do.”
The point had been underscored by Superintendent Dr. Tammy Champa at the February 26 school board meeting. “The district’s declaration of equity is not in any way a violation of law,” said Champa. She referenced advice from the district’s legal counsel, the law firm Kennedy and Graven, who affirmed that the ‘Dear Colleague Letter’ was not a director or order, and therefore is not legally binding.
Board Member Comment
When the board members spoke before the Policy 100 vote, it was clear the board had the votes needed to sunset the policy, even with the absence of Director Philip Biermaier, who had asked for vote on the policy at the February 26 meeting saying “Whatever decision we make, I believe it needs to be made at the next board meeting […] I can’t live with no decision.”
Chair Tate referenced that sunsetting Policy 100 had garnered the highest number of emails and community outreach to board members she had seen in her three-year tenure. Despite that level of outreach, the response for and against sunsetting the policy was “about even […] if that doesn’t show you that this is divisive, I don’t know what does,” said Tate.
Chair Tate has maintained that Policy 100, if sunset, would be replaced by the district’s new strategic plan which is currently being drafted. That plan will be the “guiding document for the district,” said Tate. The current draft includes language on creating a “Safe, accepting, and respectful schools where individual uniqueness, talents, and interests are nurtured,” and empowering students, faculty and staff with “opportunities and choices are accessible and diverse,” but lacks any reference of diversity, equity, or inclusion.
At the February 26 meeting Chair Tate referenced changes in the plan that: “I believe that these items that we are adding in, cover the intent of the diversity and equity policy.” Those changes were to core pillars in the draft. One has been changed from “engaged learners” to “academic excellence and equity” with the inclusion of pillars “staff support and retention,” and “safe and respectful learning environments.”
Some of that language has since changed.
Director Zuzek disputed the ability of the strategic plan to replace Policy 100:
“Where in that strategic plan does it talk about the district is committed to advancing equity, equitable participation and contribution to and benefit from the enjoyment of learning and work experiences by diverse students, parents, staff and community? It isn’t anywhere so don’t spend a lot of time looking.”
Director Matt Bruns took issue with the term sunsetting: “it’s disingenuous to present it as sunsetting, because sunsetting implies it’s a temporary policy, a stop-gap to fix something that’s immediate. It’s elimination.”
Enrollment
How Policy 100 affected the district’s declining enrollment was another central point that board members disagreed upon. Clerk Millner referenced the loss of families to nearby districts including Randolf which does not have a DEI policy, as evidence that Policy 100 was not working, saying that there were families whom “have heard that the Hastings school district struggles with inclusivity and does not foster a welcoming atmosphere. This repudiation is alarming and should not be ignored.”
Other schoolboard members disagreed with Clerk Millner’s assessment of the policy, maintaining that the policy would make explicit the welcome to new families.
“I think about this policy as a guidebook for us, and when people cite its ineffectiveness or that something else would replace it, I think that’s a mark against us, that we’re not allowing ourselves to this when we make decisions as a board. I think when we put it down, we’re putting ourselves down. It’s not the flex we that we think that it is,” said Director Bruns.
Kids over politics
Several members of the crowd held signs with slogans including “what happened to choosing kids over politics?” Choosing kids over politics was a specific point of tension in the meeting. Both those for and against the policy spoke to how they were the ones putting kids before politics.
“If this policy gets removed, I will continue to believe that each and every employee in our district will continue to give their all for students. I don’t believe it takes a policy for that to happen,” said Millner.
“The equity policy reflects commitment to ensuring every student regardless of race, background, and disability has opportunity to thrive,” said Zuzek.
It was a stark divide between those who see the policy as an underpinning of district values bowing to outside political pressures versus those who see the policy as political rhetoric needlessly inserted into district policy.
Changing the Policy
Last month, Superintendent Champa related the advice of the district’s legal counsel Greg Madsen who “suggested that additional time and thought be given to allow for clarity across the state because it is a time where there are just so many things coming and interpretation of what that might be.”
“I would hate to see an action because of uncertainty or fear whatever that might be,” said Superintendent Champa.
The board was largely uninterested in even considering changing the policy despite the specific ask of reconsideration from Treasurer Zuzek: “We should do it the same dignity that we’ve done to every other policy and send it through the process of evaluating the policy and looking for ways to word, to make it better or make it stronger […] to eliminate the policy without even considering any changes to it, I think is absurd.”
In the end the board voted to sunset Policy 100: Equity and Diversity with a vote of 3-2. Director Bruns and Treasurer Zuzek were the dissenting votes.