He discussed what high school kids all want to talk about
Scott Kercher, a beloved history teacher in New Jersey, dared to tackle some of the tough issues of our times, hosting frank conversations about racism and gender identity when he came to the 85% white school district of Sparta in Republican Sussex County.
He won an award and statewiderecognition for his efforts as head of the district’s diversity council, but make no mistake: This is a cautionary tale. Now an effective leader who knew how to connect with kids is gone, thanks to an intrusion of right-wing politics that is threatening the quality of education in Sparta.
It’s a powerful example of the kind of atmosphere that we do not want to build in our schools, where teachers are scared to speak up and nobody wants this job because of the political lurch that we’re living through right now.
But let’s start at the beginning. In 2020, more than 400 former students wrote a letter in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, saying they didn’t think Sparta was doing enough to prepare them for a diverse world. Kercher, a social studies and languages supervisor, says he happily stepped in to help. It would have been negligent not to.
Having just created Sparta’s diversity council when he came to the district in 2019, he set to work, inviting the primary authors of the alumni letter to join his efforts – and in doing so, ended up becoming a target. “He was opening up a lot of really honest discussions and I think in our town, people are not as comfortable with that as they like to think,” said former school board member Jennifer Grana.
Kercher and the district’s only Black administrator, Saskia Brown, put together a virtual community screening in which people of color in Sparta shared their own experiences of being discriminated against, followed by a discussion. Called “Our Voices United,” their effort won an award from Kean University and was recognized by the state School Boards Association.
But back home, not everyone was pleased. The acting Superintendent called Brown and Kercher into his office to let them know that some members of the board of education – including its president at the time and another member who later voted not to renew Kercher’s contract – did not like the program, Kercher recalled.
“They thought that it made the town look bad,” according to Kate Matteson, a board member at the time who said she and Grana tried in vain to get the school board to honor the students and staff who worked on the project.
From that point on, Kercher felt he was being personally identified with diversity and equity issues in the district. His partner, Brown, moved on to another job, “and I was told by someone close to the board that I’d better watch out,” he said.
Which brings us tolast April: In a highly unusual move, the school board abruptly voted not to renew Kercher’s contract after his three years in the district. “I was devastated,” he said. “Still, to this day, I’ve never been given a reason why.”
A few dubious excuses were thrown about by his critics. They dug through Kercher’s personal Facebook page and took a screenshot of an anti-Trump post dating back to 2016, before he even came to Sparta, then quoted it out of context. They tried to scapegoat him for security problems at a Model UN dance back in 2020, even though the folks most adamant about this issue had previously voted to renew Kercher in both 2020 and 2021, after that field trip. The board did a fresh investigation after voting not to renew him last April, and again found that Kercher and the other chaperones were not negligent.
“The only thing that he has done that has put him in the spotlight by some district parents is taking part in diversity initiatives and adding pronouns to his (email) signature,” said parent Dana Gulino, one of the many supporters who showed up to a subsequent board meeting to defend Kercher.
The board ultimately reinstated him in June, reversing itself under public pressure. But a few months later he resigned, fearing that repeated attacks at public meetings would hurt his reputation and cause him and his family too much grief.
The last straw was being singled out again at a board meeting in July, shortly after he’d hosted a community screening of “Always Jane,” a documentary about a transgender kid growing up in a loving Sparta family. He’d invited the family and the producers, who flew in from California. “It was the event of my career of 24 years,” Kercher recalled. “It was such a powerful moment.”
But then it became the segue for a group of aspiring and sitting school board members to complain about an LGBTQ book in the high school library that they found too explicit. Instead of simply making that case, the critics, including the board’s current president, Kurt Morris, again made Kercher a target. He was recommending these books, they said at the public meeting.
“It’s only been a month now, and we’re already talking about this individual again,” Morris said of Kercher. “There’s not much we can do, we’re stuck with this guy again, unfortunately.”
Watching this from home with his children, Kercher decided he’d had enough. It was causing him too much stress. “I didn’t feel like I could do my job effectively,” he said, “constantly worried about what the next topic would be.” In the run-up to the November school board election, in which 17 people ended up vying for six seats, “I knew that I would become an issue.” So he resigned.
Board member Lauren Collier told us last week by email that the idea that Kercher was pushed out because of his association with diversity initiatives is “misguided.” The board has been “fully supportive” of diversity initiatives, she maintained. Morris and other current and former board members did not return our requests for comment.
But others in the community told us that Kercher was one of a succession of staff members harassed to the point of resignation, who had been involved in these kinds of diversity initiatives. Parents called him “a gem,” a “tireless” and “passionate” educator who made everyone feel like they mattered, including the many kids who saw him as their champion.
Here’s the thing. These throwbacks can try to put this genie back in the bottle but it’s not going back in. They should ask the kids. They are living in a world in which these questions and issues are a top priority. This is the stuff they care about. Pushing teachers who are willing to meet them where they are out of town isn’t going to change that.