An inves­tiga­tive report alleges that Sun Prairie East High School prin­ci­pal Renee Cole­man and sev­er­al oth­er employ­ees mocked stu­dents, refer­ring to some as “b**ch” and “r**ard,” dur­ing an August event, and that she repeat­ed­ly mis­gen­dered a teacher, refer­ring to the teacher both by pro­nouns and a name that the teacher did not wish to be called. 

Cole­man was reas­signed to the dis­trict office in Octo­ber and sub­se­quent­ly resigned, sign­ing a res­ig­na­tion agree­ment that would see her paid through April 7, in which she agreed not to pub­licly dis­par­age the dis­trict.

Cole­man said the dis­trict informed her two weeks ago that she vio­lat­ed the terms of her res­ig­na­tion agree­ment by speak­ing with Madison365. She said the dis­trict told her it would stop pay­ing Cole­man this month.

Last month, Cole­man and oth­ers told Madison365 that the Sun Prairie Area School Dis­trict does not adhere to its own equi­ty state­ment and that it deploys a “dou­ble stan­dard” when han­dling dis­ci­pline with employ­ees of col­or. 

Cole­man said she was not afford­ed process­es such as restora­tive jus­tice in her removal as prin­ci­pal, despite nev­er receiv­ing dis­ci­pline for any pri­or con­duct. 

The dis­trict said Cole­man “chose to vio­late the terms of her res­ig­na­tion agree­ment” by “speak­ing pub­licly, neg­a­tive­ly, and inac­cu­rate­ly about the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing her depar­ture.”

The dis­trict lat­er released the inves­tiga­tive report detail­ing Cole­man’s forced res­ig­na­tion in response to an open records request from Madison365.

Click here to down­load the report. 

The dis­trict con­duct­ed two sep­a­rate inves­ti­ga­tions into alleged con­duct by Cole­man: one relat­ed to offen­sive com­ments made dur­ing an event, and anoth­er relat­ed to mis­gen­der­ing a teacher. 

Alleged offen­sive com­ments

The first inves­ti­ga­tion stemmed from a com­plaint from a dis­trict employ­ee who claimed Cole­man made inap­pro­pri­ate com­ments while in a press box at Ash­ley Field in Sun Prairie dur­ing an August staff con­vo­ca­tion. 

The report said Cole­man referred to one stu­dent per­form­ing a dance rou­tine alleged­ly say­ing “That bitch does­n’t know her shit and needs to sit down.” The report also claims Cole­man said the stu­dents were run­ning in a cir­cle “like retards” and that Cole­man and oth­er staff mem­bers were mak­ing lewd com­ments regard­ing the hot weath­er such as one employ­ee need­ing to “lift their boobs and wipe off the sweat.”

Cole­man main­tains she nev­er said those things. 

“I made no com­ment that they were a bitch or retard­ed,” Cole­man told Madison365. “Those are two com­ments I don’t use. I’m a big sup­port­er of the per­for­mances that went on at East and West. Why would I say that about kids?”

The dis­tric­t’s report dis­cred­it­ed over half of the wit­ness­es inter­viewed dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion, which was con­duct­ed by Mil­wau­kee-based MWH Law Group.

Accord­ing to both Cole­man and the dis­tric­t’s report, there were nine employ­ees in the press box dur­ing the con­vo­ca­tion. The report says only four of the employ­ees were deemed “cred­i­ble” by inves­ti­ga­tors. 

Cole­man says the nine employ­ees con­sist­ed of four white men and five women, some of whom were women of col­or and were also mem­bers of Cole­man’s staff. Cole­man claims the Sun Prairie Area School Dis­trict is rely­ing sole­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of the four white men. 

“In the dis­tric­t’s eyes, the four white men are cred­i­ble, but the women are not cred­i­ble,” Cole­man said. 

The report says dur­ing the inter­view with Cole­man she did not sit up straight and look them in the eye, which inves­ti­ga­tors said made her not cred­i­ble. Like­wise, the dis­tric­t’s report says that the five women were a com­bi­na­tion of stand­off­ish, had selec­tive mem­o­ry, or denied that alleged things were said. 

The dis­trict went as far as alleg­ing Cole­man said she could not be fired because she is Black and repeat­ed­ly inferred that she was a brag­gart. 

“Prin­ci­pal Cole­man stat­ed that she could not be fired because she is Black,” the report said. “That she would not get into any trou­ble for her bad behav­ior, and that she has got­ten away with bad behav­ior in the past.”

The report lat­er reit­er­at­ed that Cole­man “bragged” about not get­ting in trou­ble because she is Black. 

“I nev­er said that and any­one who knows me knows I have always been con­cerned about being Black in Sun Prairie and that I could be fired,” Cole­man said. “Who­ev­er said that is clear­ly lying. You believed I said ‘I’m Black, I can’t be fired?’ No Black per­son in Amer­i­ca would ever say that.”

Mis­gen­der­ing a teacher

The dis­trict also inves­ti­gat­ed com­plaints that Cole­man engaged in dis­crim­i­na­tion against a Sun Prairie East teacher by repeat­ed­ly refer­ring to that teacher by the wrong name and pro­nouns.

“Prin­ci­pal Cole­man repeat­ed­ly mis­gen­dered an employ­ee whom she super­vised by using the incor­rect name and pro­nouns over the course of a year despite repeat­ed requests by the staff mem­ber and their col­leagues to use the cor­rect names and pro­nouns,” the school dis­trict said in a state­ment.

The school dis­trict cur­rent­ly lists the teacher by their giv­en male name and gen­der iden­ti­fi­ca­tion on the dis­tric­t’s pub­lic fac­ul­ty ros­ter. A dis­trict spokesper­son did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to an email ask­ing whether the teacher had ever com­plained about that mis­gen­der­ing or whether any­one would face dis­ci­pli­nary action for the error.

Madison365 reviewed an audio record­ing of Cole­man’s inter­view with inves­ti­ga­tors about the mis­gen­der­ing.

Cole­man repeat­ed­ly told the inves­ti­ga­tors that she was unaware of the teacher’s pre­ferred pro­nouns, that the teacher did­n’t ini­tial­ly cor­rect her about mis­gen­der­ing them, and that as soon as the teacher did say some­thing to her about it, she imme­di­ate­ly began refer­ring to the teacher using their pre­ferred pro­nouns and names.

Dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­to­ry inter­view, the inves­ti­ga­tor repeat­ed­ly referred to the teacher as “he,” despite know­ing that the teacher’s pre­ferred pro­noun is “they” – the very thing Cole­man was being inves­ti­gat­ed for doing.

Cole­man told inves­ti­ga­tors that she first met the teacher dur­ing their job inter­views.

“Dur­ing the job inter­views, the teacher asked us to refer to them as Dylan,” Cole­man told the inves­ti­ga­tor.

Lat­er on dur­ing the 2023–24 school year, Cole­man said she was told the teacher want­ed to be known as Mr. Arlo.

Accord­ing to Cole­man, it was not until she had to con­front that teacher about hav­ing a stu­dent in their class­room who is not a stu­dent at SP East, that the teacher raised con­cerns about how she was gen­der­ing them.

At that time, Cole­man said she was told the teacher want­ed to be referred to as “Teacher Arlo” and made efforts to remem­ber that, but was not per­fect in always refer­ring to them as “Teacher Arlo” and some­times said “Mr. Arlo”.

Teacher Arlo did not respond to mul­ti­ple requests for com­ment.

The deci­sion to sep­a­rate with Cole­man over it comes on the heels of sev­er­al racist inci­dents and racial issues in the Sun Prairie School Dis­trict in recent years.

Despite those, the dis­trict says it “remains stead­fast” in its equi­ty state­ment and that “there will be no fur­ther com­ment regard­ing this sit­u­a­tion from mem­bers of the Board of Edu­ca­tion or dis­trict admin­is­tra­tion.”