WAUKESHA, Wis. — Melissa Tempel’s first-grade class at Heyer Elementary School in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, has spent weeks preparing for its upcoming spring concert.
Tempel and her co-teacher, dual-language instructors at the school, wanted the concert to have a theme of world unity and peace. Among the songs they selected: “It’s a Small World,” sung in Spanish, and “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles.
Students were also scheduled to perform “Rainbowland,” a 2017 duet by Miley Cyrus and her godmother, Dolly Parton, with words advocating for acceptance. Tempel began rehearsing with her pupils as soon as another faculty member proposed the song, which Tempel and her co-teacher approved. Her first graders, she explained, require as much time as possible to memorise the songs before the performance, which will take place just before Mother’s Day.
“My students loved it immediately,” Tempel told CNN of her classroom’s reaction to “Rainbowland.”
However, Tempel claims that school management asked her to remove “Rainbowland” from the concert just one day after students learned it. According to a school board policy on controversial topics in the classroom, the district requested that the song be removed in a statement because its lyrics “could be deemed controversial.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to live in paradise, where we’re free to be exactly who we are,” Cyrus and Parton sing. “Living in a Rainbowland, where you and I go hand in hand. Oh, I’d be lying if I said this was fine, all the hurt and the hate going on here.”
Representatives for Cyrus and Parton did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
“It’s really about if we could love one another a little better or be a little kinder, be a little sweeter, we could live in rainbow land,” Parton said of the song in 2017, while Cyrus separately noted that some of the lyrics nod to “different races and genders and religions.”
“(It would be great) if we all did come together to create and said, ‘Hey, we’re different, that’s awesome, let’s not change to be the same, let’s stay different but let’s come together anyway.’ Because a rainbow’s not a rainbow without all the different colors,” Cyrus told NME.
Tempel said that “Rainbowland” isn’t “just a song.”
“We’re trying to support inclusivity,” she said. “The love and acceptance piece, and being who you are, I don’t think there’s anything political about that.”
Per the Waukesha school district’s policy, a “controversial issue” is one that “may be the subject of intense public argument” or may have “political, social or personal impacts and/or the community,” among other criteria. When reached by CNN, Waukesha school district Superintendent James Sebert did not specify why “Rainbowland” was deemed controversial.
School districts across the US remove rainbow imagery
Tempel, who is concerned that the ban on “Rainbowland” is part of a larger attempt to limit discussion of LGBTQ topics in schools, claims that school officials have tried to remove other references to rainbows in schools. She stated that officials requested teachers throughout the district last year to remove rainbow decor and stop wearing rainbow lanyards or clothing.
Sebert stated that some signage had been removed in accordance with the policy that resulted in the “Rainbowland” ban, but he did not explicitly mention rainbow signage. According to CNN, the district has its own “Commitment to All” poster in both English and Spanish to remind students that they are “respected,” “belong,” and “have a voice.”
The Waukesha County school board was more explicit with its guidance on LGBTQ students, earlier this year approving a resolution that encourages teachers to avoid using a student’s preferred nickname or pronouns unless they’ve received written approval from the student’s parent.
School districts across the United States are increasingly restricting faculty members’ ability to discuss LGBTQ issues with their pupils at all grade levels. Teachers in Florida were barred from discussing sexuality and gender identity with pupils in kindergarten through third grade under a legislation dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by opponents.
USA Today reported earlier this year that school districts in Delaware, Ohio, and Wisconsin, among others, have prohibited teachers from wearing Pride flags. In addition, school districts in Texas, Louisiana, and Michigan have banned books with LGBTQ characters or themes.
Teachers in Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine School District have been barred from displaying Pride flags or using pronouns in their email signatures after school officials reinterpreted an old policy that prohibits “partisan politics, sectarian religious views, or selfish propaganda,” CNN reported last year.
After “Rainbowland” was banned at Heyer Elementary, another faculty member suggested Tempel and her co-teacher replace it with “Rainbow Connection,” Kermit the Frog’s famous anthem about hope and pursuing one’s goals. However, that song was also originally banned until parent members of the Waukesha Alliance for Education addressed the ban with school staff, and officials ultimately reversed the ban, according to Tempel.
The concert will go on as planned, with students singing “Rainbow Connection” instead of “Rainbowland,” a result that is “fully supported by the Superintendent,” per the school district statement Sebert shared with CNN.
Tempel and teachers remain committed to inclusion
Samantha Siebenaller, a parent whose child is in Tempel’s co-teacher’s class, praised Heyer Elementary faculty for “their dedication to creating an environment where inclusion thrives in spite of the Board.”
Siebenaller said in a statement that some Waukesha School Board members have “embarrassed our community … with their lack of commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.”
CNN has reached out to Waukesha School Board President Kelly Piacsek for comment.
Tempel, for her part, hasn’t removed the rainbows from her classroom. Her students were disappointed when they learned they would no longer sing “Rainbowland,” but she remains committed to showing her support for inclusion in different ways. She spoke up about the song ban on Twitter, drawing thousands of eyes to her school and its upcoming concert.
She told CNN that what’s most important to her is being there for the children she teaches — “making sure my students feel safe and supported at school, and that their identities are appreciated, no matter how they identify.”