USA TODAY International Edition
Teacher reprimanded for discrimination
MARSHFIELD An elementary teacher was reprimanded five years ago after being accused of telling two boys they couldn’t play the role of Abraham Lincoln in a skit because they were “too dark-skinned,” according to newly released records.
The documents were turned over to the Marshfield NewsHerald, part of the USA TODAY Network, in response to a public records request made after reports of a similar incident in 2016.
Last year, two teachers violated the district’s non-discrimination policy while casting Marshfield High School’s spring production of The Sound of Music, according to documents that a judge ordered school officials to release.
The newly released records show that 2016 was not the first time a teacher in this community of almost 20,000 people about 160 miles northwest of Milwaukee was found to have discriminated against students in casting.
In 2012, Pam Nikolai, who was a music teacher at Lincoln Elementary School, was issued a formal letter of reprimand from then-principal Todd Felhofer after a parent complained that Nikolai told two secondgrade boys they couldn’t play the part of President Lincoln in a class skit because of their skin color. Instead, Nikolai gave the role to a student who was not in class at the time she asked for volunteers.
The newly released documents reveal the school district launched an investigation in February 2012 in response to Nikolai’s comments.
District officials interviewed eight students about the incident, according to the records. Five of those students, including the two boys involved, said they remembered Nikolai saying the boys couldn’t play the part because they were “too dark-skinned.”
The teacher denied the claim in an email to a school official.
Nikolai, who retired last year, did not return calls seeking comment.
She was directed to closely monitor her language, ensure no instructional decisions were made based on the protected class of students and apologize to the two boys involved in the incident, according to the letter of reprimand that Felhofer drafted.