Middle School Teacher Resigns After Being Told To Remove An 'Offensive' Sign From Her Classroom
Sixth grade teacher Sarah Inama admitted that she doesn't understand how the posters in her classroom snowballed into her quitting.
GaudiLab | Shutterstock A teacher quit her job at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Meridian, Idaho, after five years of being a favorite educator there because she was told by school officials that a sign she had hanging in her classroom needed to come down. Sarah Inama had been in a standoff with her school district for months before she eventually decided to leave her job entirely because she refused to take down a sign that, in her eyes, was all about kindness, the opposite of what administrators were trying to make it out to be.
A teacher was told to remove an 'offensive' sign from her classroom, so she resigned instead.
Inama's issue with the school district first began in January 2025 after officials ordered her to remove an "Everyone is welcome here" sign that she had hung up in her classroom. The sixth-grade history teacher admitted that she refused to comply with the order, pointing out that the message was a fundamental part of making sure that she created a positive learning environment for her students.
In an interview with NBC News, Inama recalled that the principal and vice principal came to her classroom to inform her that two posters she had hung up when she first began teaching at the middle school were controversial and needed to be removed. Other teachers at the school were also given similar instructions regarding the posters they had hung up.
Inama's two posters included one with the phrase "Everyone is welcome here," with an illustration of hands in different skin tones. The other said that everyone in the classroom is "welcome, important, accepted, respected, encouraged, valued," and "equal." The principal of the middle school cited district policy that classrooms must respect the rights of people to express differing opinions and that decorations are to be "content-neutral."
"There are only two opinions on this sign: Everyone is welcome here or not everyone is welcome here," Inama told NBC News. "Since the sign is emphasizing that everyone, in regards to race or skin tone, is welcome here no matter what, immediately, I was like, the only other view of this is racist. And I said, 'That sounds like racism to me.'"
At first, the teacher decided to remove both of the posters.
Despite initially taking them down, the choice weighed on her, and Inama recalled telling her husband that she felt she needed to hang them back up. The principal ended up warning her that her refusal would mean insubordination and could result in serious consequences.
A meeting ensued between Inama and district personnel, where they offered to purchase alternative signs for her classroom as long as they didn't have the same message as her current posters.
The conversation eventually escalated when the school district's chief academic officer, Marcus Myers, tried to justify the request to remove her posters saying that "the political environment ebbs and flows, and what might be controversial now might not have been controversial three, six, nine months ago, and we have to follow that."
The teacher eventually decided to resign after not being able to reach a decision that satisfied her moral compass.
"I felt like throughout the whole timeline I’ve been given so many different reasonings why my poster was in violation," Inama told KTVB. "I mean, even to this day I’m still like, 'I can’t even believe that this is the situation that I’m in.'" She continued, "That a poster that is welcoming all the students in my classroom is, first of all, not only not celebrated but considered controversial. And worse than that, just an opinion. And I just don't want to be a part of it."
In her resignation letter to the district, Inama wrote that they were more interested in not alienating people with a racist view rather than supporting her and her message of inclusivity. The poster controversy ended up garnering support on Inama's side from people in her community. Supporters even organized demonstrations outside the district offices with "Everyone is welcome here" T-shirts.
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Inama wasn't the only teacher who chose to resign, either. Nerissa Armstrong, a Meridian Middle School teacher with 15 years of experience and two Teacher of the Year awards, according to KTVB, joined Inama due to the handling of the situation.
"You made it extraordinarily clear that diversity is not welcome here," Armstrong wrote in her resignation letter. "You have reinforced that educators and parents who stand against this intolerance will be maligned and dismissed. Therefore, I am not welcome here either."
Teachers in schools across the country are facing orders not to teach certain topics to their students.
Since taking office, President Trump has made it his mission to restructure the public school system, including subject matter taught in the classroom. He even ordered U.S. schools to stop teaching "critical race theory" and other materials relating to race and sexuality, or else they could end up losing funding.
According to CBS News, Trump's order on K-12 schools declared that federal money cannot be used on the "indoctrination" of children, including "radical gender ideology and critical race theory." It claimed that civil rights laws barring discrimination based on sex and race would be used to enforce the order, calling critical race theory an "inherently racist policy."
This attack on teachers and students' education does more harm than good. It means teachers like Inama, who have been a staple in their community and a support for their students, are forced to step away from a profession they love because they're no longer being allowed to create inclusive and safe environments for these kids to learn.
As many educators continue to challenge not only their school districts' rules but the nation's governments and lawmakers, the only thing that will be damaged is the heart and soul of many of these schools.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
