AURORA| Aurora Public Schools board member Cathy Wildman pushed back Tuesday night against accusations that she had previously made racist comments as the school board considered a measure created to aid some illegal immigrants and their families.
“Claiming that immigrants make parts of America unsafe is a dangerous narrative that fuels hate, racial hierarchy and supremacy,” Kristen Pough told school board members Tuesday night during the board’s regular meeting. Pough is a 2012 Aurora Central High School graduate and now a political activist and member of the NAACP in Aurora. She and two current APS students told the school board that Wildman was out of line.
On May 16, the school board approved a resolution directing the school district to make plans to push back against federal immigration requests for information about the citizenship status of students or their families. The measure also calls for plans to be prepared for students whose families may be arrested by immigration police.
The measure passed, with Wildman voting for the resolution.
As board members commented on the policy before voting, Wildman discussed her ambivalence over the measure because she said it accommodated “rule breakers,” referring to illegal immigrants. She later talked about family members in Arizona who were warned off traveling to border communities because of safety issues created by tension over illegal immigration.
A letter to the editor written last week to the Aurora Sentinel by a local political activist seized on the comments, criticizing Wildman for being racist and demeaning to illegal immigrants and all immigrants.
Tuesday, Wildman told the audience that her comments were misconstrued. During an at-times emotional speech, she did not apologize but said that she has always been fastidious about following rules and insisting others do, too.
“I think it really was political and preparing for the next election,” Wildman said after the meeting. “My concern is I’m being misinterpreted. I taught school for 40 years and never been accused of racism or the other words that were used.”
Pough said she works with Young Aspiring Americans for Social and Political Activism, and its director was approached by members of a Denver-based group called A-Plus Colorado, which advocates for education reform and school choice and charter schools. The group has issued critical audits of APS’s performance.
Wildman, a career teacher, also highlighted the Sentinel letter written by Republican Party strategist Tyler Sandberg, which pointed out her support of the Aurora teacher’s union and asking union members to call out Wildman’s comments. She also called out an A-Plus Colorado blog post from May 19 critical of her comments and a portent to a political attack in preparation for the board elections this fall. Wildman’s term, however, is up in 2019.
Liz Reetz , A-Plus Colorado’s district advocacy director, authored the blog post for the group. Reetz said characterizing her response to Wildman’s comments as political was a way to distract from Wildman’s lack of an apology. She reached out to other community groups to inform them of the chance to speak against Wildman so the APS board would know this issues wasn’t going to be forgotten by the community.
“She’s pitting us against the teachers union and saying it’s politically motivated to distract from her comments,” Reetz said. “Are we thinking about if Cathy Wildman is serving kids well with that attitude? Absolutely. But I think it’s a little bit of a stretch to say it’s politically motivated.”
Pouch and Reetz said the comments were offensive and the parts of the letter read to the audience showed that Wildman didn’t understand the problems with her comments on May 16.
“With a district that has a growing population of immigrants, especially immigrants attending innovation schools, that APS wants to fix, there is no room for disparaging and privileged comments,” Pough told the board.