An open letter to the community

Weeks after my sudden termination from teaching math at Bayfield High School, I still don’t know why I was fired. There was no disruption in my classroom. My last day was a normal day, and my students took their tests without incident. My words – both in class and online – were facts, not opinions. Yet my employment ended overnight without any meaningful explanation.

Since that day, I’ve received no contact from school administration. Without any dialogue, I’m left to assume the worst: that those entrusted to lead our schools have sided with partiality and prejudice rather than confront it. I have to now distance my family from these leaders that would silence the truth rather than defend it.

When I was questioned after school on Thurs., Sept. 11, I was asked by principal Jason Wayman, incredibly, “Do you think Charlie Kirk deserved to die?” I’m still trying to understand what possible purpose that question served – or what difference it would make how I answered it. 

The people who called for my firing were not acting in defense of any child. They claimed Christianity as justification for their outrage, their harassment and their hate. It’s ironic, and tragic, to see Christianity used as a weapon against a stranger, while ignoring the words of Charlie Kirk himself – words filled with scorn, dishonesty and division.

I shouldn’t need to explain what Christianity truly is.

If this district’s leadership will yield so easily to political pressure and bias, it will soon face even greater moral questions. What happens when federal agents arrive at our schools to detain so-called “illegal” students? Will the same leaders stand up for the children in their care?

Through all of this, I remained focused on what I was hired to do: teach math at the highest level possible, to all students equally, without regard for their beliefs or opinions about me. My classroom was about learning, opportunity and growth. I cared about every student the same.

My grandfather, a paratrooper in World War II, earned two Purple Hearts in Sicily and Normandy fighting fascists who disguised hate as Christianity. The people behind my dismissal will never succeed in driving out every good teacher. I’m grateful to be free of the burden of teaching, even as I mourn what was lost: trust, respect and the chance to build something great in Bayfield.

Whenever intolerance arose among students in my classroom, I always told them that labels like “left” and “right,” “conservative” and “liberal,” “Democrat” and “Republican” are misnomers – that no human being fits neatly into a box. We are all more complex than our politics, more capable than our biases and more connected than we realize. This principle guided every decision I made as a teacher.

When I came to pack up my classroom, I told superintendent Dylan Connell that the plastic crate holding my students’ folders was mine, but that I wished to leave it, as it was organizing their assignments. After I had left the room, he removed the students’ work from the crate and returned the empty crate to me. This gesture said everything: that the work of students and continuity of education are not priorities. Many in the community immediately recognized this pattern when they learned of my dismissal, noting that an uneducated populace is easier to steer, whether toward polls or into wars.

I share this out of hope that the truth still matters. If our schools cannot model honesty, courage and open conversation, then we cannot expect our students to learn them.

– Chris Ricci, Bayfield