After school officials reportedly read a statement to students about a teacher’s upcoming sex change, the Eau Claire Area School District faces a lawsuit demanding it to turn over the document.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), a Milwaukee-based civil rights law firm representing parent Leah Buchman, claims the district has been sitting on the document for weeks, citing an ongoing investigation.
“It’s ridiculous for a school district to refuse to produce a statement that was read out loud to dozens of minor students in several district classrooms,” said Cory Brewer, WILL associate counsel. “What was told to these kids should be readily accessible to parents.”
According to the complaint filed this week in the Eau Claire County Circuit Court, Northstar Middle School students were required to report to the orchestra room during homeroom on June 5, the second-to-last day of the school year.
They were greeted by orchestra teacher Jacob Puccio, a school counselor, and Eau Claire Schools DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Director Dang Yang, according to the lawsuit. The students were then told that Puccio would be undergoing a gender transition from male to female.
Puccio told the assembled students that he had felt he was a girl from an early age and experienced childhood trauma because his parents and friends did not accept that Puccio was the opposite sex from that assigned at birth, the lawsuit states. The discussion also included a reference to a medical procedure Puccio was to undergo.
“Prior to this session, staff at the school were notified this discussion would take place. Parents, including Buchman, were not notified,” the complaint alleges.
Additionally, a scripted statement was read to multiple classes of elementary and high school music students in the district, including North High School and at least three elementary schools (Sam Davey Elementary, Locust Lane Elementary, and Northwoods Elementary), the complaint alleges.
The statement was “crafted by the district specifically to ensure that students received information in a particular way,” a press release from WILL states. To date, parents have no details about what their children were told.
After the statements were read to the students, Buchman, who has children both in the middle school orchestra and high school band, requested a copy of the script. The district denied her request, with the public school system’s attorney claiming that the document could not be disclosed because an investigation was underway into whether any “employee acted improperly with respect to the June 6 [sic] events.”
The district did not disclose the start date of the investigation or who was being investigated.
On June 23, WILL sent a public records request asking only for the statement that was read to the high school band class, the law firm said. The district denied WILL”s request, again citing an ongoing investigation.
“Unfortunately, this ‘investigation’ appears to have not even started yet, and given that the event occurred over a month ago, this raises a question of whether the District is simply stonewalling to prevent the release of this information to parents,” the press release states.
So WILL has taken the district to court, asserting school officials are violating Wisconsin Public Records Law. The law firm and the parent are asking the court to direct the district to produce the requested record.
The complaint points to Wisconsin’s open records law and its declaration of public policy, which in part states, “The denial of public access [to records] generally is contrary to the public interest, and only in an exceptional case may access be denied.” The law establishes “a presumption of complete public access [to government records], consistent with the conduct of governmental business.”
WILL also notes that the prepared statement about Puccio is not an employee personnel record, so it does not fall under exemptions to the records law.
“The District does not deny that the record in question was read to several classes of students on or about June 5, 2023 (including Buchman’s children) and, thus, the content of the letter is not and cannot be considered in any way to be confidential or to be an employee personnel record,” the complaint states.
Eau Claire Superintendent Michael Johnson could not be reached for comment Wednesday. The lawsuit alleges he said he was “proud of the thoughtfulness and intentionality” behind how the information was shared with students.
“After the events of June 5 and the inquiries received from certain parents, it was decided that there should be a formal investigation of the events of that day (and the planning that preceded that day) to determine if there were any missteps under school district policy,” Teri Piper Thompson, the district’s communications director, said in a statement to The Wisconsin Daily Star. “With the summer season upon us, the investigation has encountered some issues with witness/employee availability. Work on the investigation is ongoing.”
Dang, the district’s DEI director, did not return The Daily Star’s request for comment.
Buchman said she’s simply asking for the school district to provide what was communicated to her children and their peers in the classroom.
“As a parent, it’s my responsibility to help my kids understand all that life throws their way, and I do not understand why it has taken the school district so long to update parents,” she said.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
