Sarah Inama, Idaho's 'Everyone is Welcome' Educator

In this episode, our guest is Sarah Inama, the former West Ada School District educator who made national and international headlines earlier this year refusing to bow to her school district administration’s directive to take down her classroom poster affirming the importance of inclusion and diversity. 

Sarah’s story and her now-famous ‘Everyone is Welcome Here’ poster became a rallying point for those eager to support students, educators and public education. 

The IEA Reporter Podcast caught up with Sarah from home during summer break to talk to her about her experiences and what comes next for her.

Transcript

Mike Journee: 0:13

Welcome to the IEA reporter podcast, a regular discussion about the news and events important to Idaho Education Association members and those who value public education.IEA members are public school educators from all over the state and members of the largest union in Idaho. They're Idaho's most important education experts, and they use their influence to fight for a free, quality and equitable public education for every student in the state. I'm Mike Journee, communications director at DIA and I'll be your host for this episode today. Our guest is Sarah ainama, the former West ADA school district educator who made national and international headlines earlier this year for refusing to bow to her school district administration's directive to take down her classroom poster affirming the importance of inclusion and diversity after her stand made headlines. Sarah story and her now famous, everyone is welcome here. Poster became a rallying point for those eager to support students, educators and public education. In fact, the poster's inclusive imagery, featuring hearts and hands of varied skin tones, became known on popular e commerce sites as the Idaho teacher Poster The IEA reporter podcast caught up with Sarah from home during summer break to talk with her about her experiences and what comes next for her. Sarah Namo, welcome to the IEA reporter podcast. We're really excited to have you here. Thanks for joining us today.

Sarah Inama: 1:41

Thanks for having me on

Mike Journee: 1:42

you bet you know Sarah. I'm going to assume for the moment that most people listening to this podcast are going to know a bit about you and your experience that you've had over the last several months. I know it's been quite a 2025 for you so far. So I wanted to start off with where things stand with you professionally. Last we heard publicly was that you had resigned from your position as a sixth grade world civilizations teacher at Lewis Clark Middle School in the West ADA School District. Do you have any news for us about where you're going to be teaching this summer or this fall? Excuse me, me,

Sarah Inama: 2:16

yes, I'm excited to say that I accepted a teaching position at East Junior High in the Boise school district teaching World Studies. That's really fantastic news. I'm glad to hear that. I know it's been a really rough spring for you, and so I'm glad to I'm glad you're going to land in such a great place. I've heard great things about that school and the administrators there, so I'm glad to hear that for you. Thanks. Yeah, I'm a soul. You know your stand to keep your everyone is welcome here. Banner in your classroom in the West, Ada school district became national and even international news.

Mike Journee: 2:49

How have the last few months been for you? Personally,

Sarah Inama: 2:52

it has been, it's been a little overwhelming. I sometimes feel bad that I can't get back to everyone. I've received a lot of mail, like actual snail mail, which has been really awesome, lots of emails, and I've tried to get back to as many people as possible, but people are listening, and they sent me something. I hope they know that I I appreciate what they sent me, and and and I have read everything, so I'm just really thankful for that. I you know, this is also in the midst of just grading 150 papers and tests and planning other units. So trying to balance that time kind of made it a little bit overwhelming, but also it was really validating that so many people in our community, in our state, in this country and like this world, feel the same way about this message. I mean, I think it's something a lot of people can get behind and are kind of astonished that this is even being considered a controversial message, which to many people, it's obviously not. And so just the support and how much I've been reached out to by people is has been really awesome.

Mike Journee: 4:19

That's great to hear. I imagine it's a bit surreal. One minute you're teaching your sixth graders, and next minute you're a middle of the spotlight for better or worse, right?

Sarah Inama: 4:29

Yeah, totally

Mike Journee: 4:31

Well, to be honest with you, we we totally underestimated what your situation meant to people. I'll be honest any social media posts the IEA did about you or your poster just went nuts in ways that we just didn't. We didn't expect. What do you think it is about this moment in time in our society that made your stand resonate with people so much?

Unknown: 4:56

Yeah, I was just thinking about this. I just think I. Yeah, there are a lot of people today in this environment that are confused, infuriated, terrified about what is being considered political. It seems like what is making people frustrated is that things that are not controversial are being considered political. At this point, that's where we have to start standing up and drawing a line, setting a boundary, saying this, no, this is not going to be political. This is not political, and we need to walk it back.

Mike Journee: 5:42

Yeah, things, things we might have assumed to be truth in a modern society that suddenly, suddenly no longer are being considered truth for folks, whether it's scientific facts or the color of someone's skin or whatever it may be, and how they and how they're seen by other people. It's, it's really, really quite, quite astonishing to see how quickly things have unraveled.

Unknown: 6:10

Yeah, I think some people just have that moment where they're like, What are we doing here? And I think it really, really gets to people when they see children affected by that

Mike Journee: 6:23

absolutely, absolutely

Unknown: 6:24

children that were, you know, they trust. These are places schools where people are trusting adults to make sure that their children's well being is at the foremost and at the forefront and and so I think that's really upsetting to see that adults and people in positions of authority aren't upholding those things. Absolutely.

Mike Journee: 6:53

We're gonna we're gonna talk a little bit more about some of the reactions that you saw here in a little while, whether it's from your students or from from grown ups. But first of all, I want to talk a little bit about the image that that was at the center of all this. It's in fact, the image is pretty well known now. In fact, on E commerce sites and T shirts and posters and other things are being labeled with Idaho teacher. Everyone is welcome.

Unknown: 7:19

Yeah. Were you? Were you

Mike Journee: 7:21

surprised by people's reaction to that image and the notoriety of the of the image? Now,

Unknown: 7:29

I mean, I, I think it's a beautiful message, and I, I love to see it everywhere. I see people wearing the T shirts when I'm out walking on the Green Belt, or I see the yard signs in people's yards riding my bike around, and I've seen it painted on storefront windows. People have sent me text messages of people wearing the T shirts in Spain and Europe, and I mean, all over. And I just think it's cool, like I I think would be awesome to keep this message going. And I just think it's such a beautiful message that is so simple, but it has a lot of meaning behind it. It's been, it's been really great to see how far and wide it's been spread.

Mike Journee: 8:19

Yeah, I'll share a personal note. I was wearing my T shirt in my front yard the other day, and a woman stopped and said, I love your T shirt and and she asked me where I got it, you know, and everything. I just told her, it's online. You can search Idaho teacher, everyone, everyone is welcome. You'll find it. So, so I'm sure she went home and and searched for one, and maybe has one of her own. So that was, it was really neat. Well, one of the things that's really stood out for me throughout this whole episode is kind of the tone deaf nature of the West data, school board and administration over the whole thing. You know, I think to this day, they're unwilling to admit any mistakes, and they continue to double down on the position they're adjusting policies and that kind of thing right now, but, but people are still concerned about what they're going to do. Were you surprised at their position and their unwillingness to back down on things?

Unknown: 9:12

Yeah, I guess the first time we anyone ever really heard them address it in a public sense would be on the ranch podcast, and that, I mean listening to Marcus Myers talk on that just blew my mind. I couldn't believe I mean his reasonings for saying that this poster is a violation of their policy. I just couldn't believe it. And then, you know, the memo sent out to staff saying that everybody needs to be a team player, and when people aren't a team player, and. Know how to follow the rules of the game. It's confusing. Which I was like, Guess it is confusing. I mean, I that's the whole point. I I was like, I, as a teacher, Love rules. I love them. You know, I've read the new those, those policies every year that I've worked there, I've signed acknowledgement forms of them like I understand those policies, but I still, to this day, will argue that my poster is not a violation of what that policy is written out to be. And the whole time, I really didn't take any of this stuff personally, and I didn't feel like personally I talked with them, I guess. But I just was really upset for the students to see this. I mean, how heartbreaking for my like all these students to see that the people that are supposed to be protecting them and standing up for all of them are reacting in this way.

Mike Journee: 11:11

Well, Sarah, for for the few people out there who probably don't understand what we're talking about with this image, describe for us the poster and why you put it up in your classroom to begin

Unknown: 11:24

with? Yeah, well, I I've just always had a lot of things in my classroom, like I have just felt like I'll spend eight hours a day, five days a week in this room, and just observing the students that I've had, I've just kind of accumulated decor that I feel like makes the room feel cozy and addresses, you know, things that I've seen Like I've seen students feel no confidence in themselves, socially or academically, and so I like to have a poster that, because I'm rooting for you, and I believe you can. I believe you can things like that. And you know, I've, I've seen discriminatory comments be a problem in the school that I was working naming. So I thought it was a valid poster to hang up to just clearly say that everyone is welcome in my classroom. And I liked the image of the hands with different skin tones. Those skin tones look like students in my classroom. And I think representation matters and and not just I think that it does. It's been proven that for students to see that they're represented is important too, especially when they all act and are different. So I never in a million years imagine that that sign would cause any issue. I thought was a beautiful message. So it's been in my classroom pretty much since I started teaching, probably five years and the day that I was told to take it down were, you know, I was visited by my principal, Monty Hyatt, and my assistant principal, Heather Fisher, during my lunch period. And they said, You know, I need to take it down by the end of the day then. And then I have four more cost periods left after that. And I just was really sad about it. I could I it totally caught me off guard and and it blindsided me, and it was just super I don't know how else to explain it, but I was just super sad

Mike Journee: 14:10

about it. And did your students the rest of that day, you took it down. At that moment when they asked you to take

Unknown: 14:18

it down, I took it down. I mean, by the time they left my classroom, I had about five minutes left in my lunch break. So then this period started, and I had to take a little moment in the hallway to gather myself. My students were concerned about why I was feeling so upset. Whatever I didn't like directly address it, but I did have to stand up and take a poster down off the wall, and I didn't put it away. I just put it on the back table in my classroom, and at the end of class, I. Some students were looking at the poster, and said, You have to take this poster down. And I said, Yeah, Lisa, why do you take this down? Said, I mean, at that moment, I was just like, I am not i i am not speaking to them, and as part of this district, I am not I'm not answering their question in a way that's going to protect this district, because I do not agree in any way in what I'm doing right now by taking this poster down, and I'm not going to be associated with the message that that sends to my students. You know, I just said, I don't know. That doesn't follow their policy. For some reason I just said, I don't know. I just left it

Mike Journee: 15:53

pretty so your students immediately noticed and started asking questions. One, yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's pretty poignant stuff right there, and the fact that you didn't quite understand how to answer the question, I think, is, is, is very telling and understandable.

Unknown: 16:15

Yeah, well, no way was I going to say to them what I was told I wasn't going to say them, these students that are looking at me and the students that were looking at me and asking these questions literally. And I'm not just saying this for shock value. We're all students of color represented on that poster. And they said, Why is this poster need to come down? And no way was I going to say to them, because this poster is just an opinion, and it doesn't allow for people with other opinion, other opinions or differing opinions. Wasn't allow for their viewpoint. What kind of message does that send to the students that you've worked with, that you have built relationships with, that have grown to trust you, for you to say to them,

Mike Journee: 17:13

right? It's tell us a little more specifically about what, what you were told in that initial moment, about why, why? Why it had to come down. We haven't really talked about that directly. What, what, what did the the principal and assistant principal say when you, when you, when they came into your room,

Unknown: 17:29

they said, so we're just having to go around to rooms and have some posters come down that are being considered a violation of our district policy, and they're like, you know, things that have like, hands on them. And I was like, Is this the poster that you're talking about? And it's very obviously right above our heads. And they're like, Yeah, like that one, and they turned right to the other one in the at the front of my classroom that said, everyone in this classroom is welcome, valued, loved it, all words on it, but that one, and they said is just, it's considered an opinion. And I immediately was like, that sounds racist to me. This is just an opinion that's racist. And we're like, yeah, we know it's a bummer, right? You have until the end of the day to take it down.

Mike Journee: 18:44

So they so they were going around spot checking rooms, or that's what they told you that they were doing. I guess my question is, more, do you feel like they knew that that poster was up and they came to talk to you specifically about it? Or do you really think that they were going around all the rooms, looking at the posters in the rooms and telling people to take things down.

Unknown: 19:03

I think they had already gone through people's rooms and knew which posters needed to come down. And then when they came to me, they knew which posters they needed to have come down in migram

Mike Journee: 19:15

but initially you did take it down. You felt terrible about it. You got immediate questions from your students about it, yeah, but that weekend, I understand you put it back up,

Unknown: 19:27

yeah, I just could not get it out of my head and it just, I just did not feel it just did not sit well with me at all. And so Saturday morning, I was like, I am going to put that sign back up, and I want to put it up right now. So right over to school and hit back up and a and then I sat at my school computer right then and sent an email. To my principal, saying, you know, I don't agree with what you your explanation for why this poster needs to come down. I don't agree that it's a violation of this policy. And I put it back up. And I think, you know, in a roundabout way, I said, I think it is your job to protect these students against whatever reasoning it is you came to me within the first place, and it's and it's if you're not going to do your job, it is my job as a teacher to to protect them, and that's what I'm doing. And I thought for sure I would get fired.

Mike Journee: 20:43

You did? You thought in that moment you would get fired? Yeah, you, I was gonna talk to you about this a little bit later, but, but you were not a member of the Union at that moment. You're a member of the Union now we joined kind of in the aftermath of all this. And I wanted to, do you feel like, if you had been a member of the Union, that they would have, would have approached you in the same way? I

Unknown: 21:08

don't know. I've never thought about that. I'll have no idea, but I do know. So after I sent that email to my principal, he came to me about following Monday, and said, you know, this is still a violation. You keeping it up is insubordination, and I'd really like you to take it down. And said, Nope, not interested in that. And he said, Hey, well, then I'm gonna have to get other people involved. And said, do whatever you can do. And so he set up a meeting with him, me and Marcus Myers, the chief academic officer. And I said, Yeah, but I'm going to have somebody else in that meeting too. And I I asked one of the union representatives at our school to sit in that meeting to take notes, which I'm very thankful to her that she did that, because I just, I mean, I could not believe the reasonings that they were giving me, and I I just needed to have somebody else there to make sure it was being recorded.

Mike Journee: 22:25

You I saw one district representative talk about this, where they were claiming that you intended to cause a stir, that that you went to the press with the intent of of stirring things up. And let's talk a little bit about that. They also talked about the timing. The timing was, was was such to to to create the max, the maximum stir around what was, what's going on in public education these days. What's your reaction to that? Silly

Unknown: 22:50

for them to say that I never in a million years would have ever thought that this would happen. I would never, ever want to be a part of anything like this, ever like I think what they said, and I think their reasonings, and I think their reactions to it are disgusting, and it's embarrassing for for the school district. And I would have never planned that. I mean, I I, all I can do is just circle back to think about my students. I would have never, ever wanted anything like that to ever be put in their brains. I mean, I think for some of them, that was the first time they ever had to sit and contemplate about the fact that some people think that it's just an opinion that everyone should be welcome there based on the way that they look and it is. I I'm, I'm still so sick and saddened that this situation had to be the first time for some of them to realize that some people think that this is an opinion. So I would have, I would have never planned this. And that was my one qualm about going to the news with this is that I really didn't want my students to know what the district was saying because it was hurtful. I didn't want to go to the news to be like, Look at me. Look at what I've done. I wanted to go to the news to be like, Look at what is affecting your students work. These are people's children in their classroom and the people that are in charge of their well being. These. These are the decisions and the reasons that will get me for this. And this is an extremely slippery slope. I feel like this, I just will not be a part of accepting this

Mike Journee: 24:41

a very brave stance. I'm really curious what the range of reactions were from your colleagues, while all this was kind of playing out, I'm assuming that they knew what was happening. I'm assuming that we got out and and what was the range of reactions you saw from them? Some

Unknown: 24:58

people, you know, there's a hand. Full of people that were very supportive. They'd come check in on me and send me messages of support. There were some colleagues that I started to have less and less of a relationship with, just, you know, and it was also the end of the year, so, you know, we're very busy, and we barely have two minutes to run to the bathroom. So, you know, I don't blame anybody for not being more involved in this, but it did at some point, at sometimes feel like I kind of was in this alone. Yeah, what I did after, you know, the abundance of emails I received there, there were a lot of emails from other teachers in the district that were working at other schools that said, I have this assigned, very similar to this in my costume, I support you so that that was a lot very recent,

Mike Journee: 26:07

and I'll say your your new employer, the Boise School District, came out really early after you went public with this and with a statement of support saying that this, this is the kind of thing that you want teachers to do. I thought that was, that was a pretty extraordinary position, given, given what was going on with your school district.

Unknown: 26:26

Yeah, that was, that was so nice. I mean, that really got me in my field, like, that's the whole point. This is not a message that should be a violation, that should we need to be dissected to figure out what the what the underlying message is. This isn't something that is controversial, like this is a message that is beautiful, and it if this isn't the basis of public education, I don't know what is, and I I think it's something that people shouldn't be afraid of. I think it's something that we should be happy to be able to say, Yeah,

Mike Journee: 27:09

you, you did resign your position with West ADA school district over this before the end of the school year. You stayed on through the end of the year. I do believe, but, but you did resign your position with them. No, you would not be returning to their school. And your resignation letter, you said the school district is more interested in not alienating people with a racist view of our students, rather than supporting me and my classroom. That's a pretty that's a pretty extraordinary thing. Can you talk a little bit more about that? And if you can put it in the context of what's going on in the larger picture around the politicization of public education, what's happening in our state, the policies, you know, there's they referenced a specific policy. They also referenced a state law that that bans critical race theory, the false narrative of critical race theory. Can you talk a little bit about that perspective and that phrase that you put it you put into that resignation letter in the bigger picture for us, yeah, I mean,

Unknown: 28:10

the the theme of the response that I got from my principals, district officials, even our superintendent over there was that they were trying to protect me, and I was I. I kept saying, protect me from what nobody has complained about this poster, not one student, not one colleague, not one parent, and you're trying to protect me, just in case some parent were to complain about this poster, and I said to our superintendent, I said, if someone came and complained to you about this poster and said, I don't think that there should be a sign that says everyone is welcome here, because I think that's just an opinion, then, as a School District, should know ahead of time and always what their fundamental values are. And when somebody says, I don't agree with that, they should have enough conviction to say, well, that's public education. If you think, if you have a differing opinion of everyone is welcome here, then public education is not the place for you. I mean, I always thought that that was the case. I always thought that administrators and officials in public education would only have gotten into public education because they believed that. I don't know why they would be so worried about standing up for that to a handful of noisy, bigoted people in the community. And I think things in this country that make us really proud to be Americans are. Are things or times where people have fought for those inalienable rights for other people, and I think it takes a really patriotic and strong person to stand up and fight for those rights for other people, if we only considered about whether or not we have those yourself. That's privilege.

Mike Journee: 30:27

That's a really fantastic point. It's very interesting, and I wholeheartedly agree with you. So Sarah, you became a union member after this concert already started. Tell us a little bit about that. What most of the folks are going to be listening here are IEA members. Tell us about why you joined their union, your union now.

Unknown: 30:49

Yeah, it has. Had been something that was always on my mind. I wasn't. I didn't just all of a sudden think about joining the union when this started to happen. It just, you know, I talked to union representatives at our school, and had been really supported by them, even though I wasn't at that point a member of the Union, and I think it provided a little bit of a community that I didn't know existed, or I didn't know would would be so great to be a part of. It's it's nice to have a community of educators and people that believe in the beauty of public education come together to remember what that is.

Mike Journee: 31:46

That's right, and I really do have a big question mark around the fact as to whether or not they would have come at you so hard if you had been a member of the Union before. There's power in being a union member. Your first exposure to the Union at large was at the IEA delegate assembly in April, where you joined the delegates in the hall and received a standing ovation. How did that make you feel as a new member?

Unknown: 32:11

Yeah, that was really awesome that I did not know what I was walking into. I was invited by our Region Director, and he just said, you know, stop by if you get a second. And I walked into the back of this huge auditorium, and there must have been, I mean, how many people do you think were there?

Mike Journee: 32:34

There's, well, there was about 400 Yeah. And

Unknown: 32:37

lots of people came over and said hi, and some people were friendly faces, also people I've worked with before and so it that was really awesome. That was the best welcoming to a community. Well,

Mike Journee: 32:55

you were a bit of a rock star at that point. So, yeah, I think it was to be expected. So, you know, we you and I have talked before around the fact that that an educators job is is a political job, from the from spell the bell, just about everything you do in a classroom is determined or dictated by an elected official, whether that's a school board member or whether That's an administrator hired by that school board or a state legislator, the governor, whoever it may be, those folks all have a big say in what happens in your classrooms. How? How would you say that the your union could best support folks in this in this crazy political climate that we find

Unknown: 33:37

ourselves in? First of all, I think just knowing that they're there as a point of contact, a point of collaboration, a safety blanket, is it's good to know, and especially when don't know, don't know what's going to happen next. I would have never imagined this would be a situation, and so I have no idea what other things are going to come at us down the road, but I think sometimes for educators, the path of least resistance is is sometimes just so much easier, because we have so much to Do. We have so much on our plates. We have so many things going on in our brain. We're asked probably 500 plus questions a day and and sometimes I think just volume up with flow is is easy for a lot of educators, but I think in instances where they feel like, fundamentally, what they're asked to do, or where they're where they feel, there is a disagreement that affects the students, but they're supported. Being defending their position. Educators are the ones in the classrooms working with students, eight hours a day, five days a week. We see the behaviors we see fall, learning obstacles. We see that physical or proximity obstacles in our classrooms. We see, if anything, that's going on firsthand with the students, which is what this is all about. We see that, and I think all educators voices are extremely important when deciding what goes on in the classrooms and in schools, and I think to be supported by the union teachers would know that, but their voices are extremely valuable.

Mike Journee: 35:54

Yeah, one of the things that strikes me throughout through what you've been saying, and something that I've heard many times before, is educators do everything they can to meet their students where they are right. They do everything they can to meet their students where they are and provide the kind of education, the kind of support, the kind of the kind of love that that student needs in that particular moment or with their particular station in life, whatever, whatever their situation at home may be, never the compassion and the the attuned nature of educators to what's going on with their students is something that, that is that that is just a wonderful thing for me, and it makes educators one of the most important people in our society, I think. And so my hat's off to to to you and to all of your colleagues for that and for recognizing that and for standing up for that. I mean, the decisions that you made this spring were not easy ones by any stretch and so but, but you had your principles and and, and it was, and I think it was something that you mentioned, it's easier sometimes for for educators to take the the path of least resistance, and I recognize that and understand that, but at the same time, seeing you and what you've done, I would imagine, really inspired a lot of your colleagues around not only here in Idaho, but around the around the country. So thank you for that. I have one last question for you. I assume that your students at East junior high here in Boise will be greeted by everyone. Is welcome here banner in your classroom this fall.

Unknown: 37:28

Oh yeah, she's already in there. She's in my little blistered bag. I haven't hung it up yet, but, and it'll be the same poster. Yep, yeah, that poster means a lot to me, and I, all my students from last year signed the back of it, and yes, it has a lot of meaning for me, and it pays my heart

Mike Journee: 37:50

well. I think that's a as good a place as we can leave it. Sarah and AMA, thank you for joining us on the IAEA reporter podcast. Again, you're you're an inspiration for folks, not just educators, not just students, but a lot of a lot of us, regular people around the country, for what you've done. I'll just say, you know, anything that we can do at the IEA to help you in your journey as an educator, we want to be there for you. Anything we can do to help you continue spreading this message, we want to be there with you, and so thank you for everything you've done, and good luck with your new job, good luck with your your new school and and everything that comes to you in the coming years.

Unknown: 38:32

Thank you much. I really appreciate it.

Mike Journee: 38:42

You thank you for listening to this episode of The IEA reporter podcast, and thanks to Sarah Inami for taking time out of her summer break to talk with us. Please watch for updates about new podcast episodes on IAEA social media channels or sign up to receive IEA reporter email updates on our website@idahoea.org I'm Mike Journee, and as always, I hope you join me in thanking Idaho's public school educators for everything they do for our state's students, families and public schools. You