A turbulent year ended for principal Mary Beth Cunat when, two weeks before the last day of class, she announced her resignation from Wildwood Elementary School on the far northwest side. She made the decision in the wake of parent outrage—and even threats—after she brought an anti-police speaker to the school.

          The most proximal cause of Cunat’s resignation was a controversy that erupted at the end of May, after she’d invited police abolitionist and community organizer Ethan “Ethos” Viets-VanLear to speak to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders for career day. 


          In an interview, Viets-VanLear told the Reader that in order to explain how he became an activist he always talks about his and his friends’ negative experiences with the police when they were growing up in Rogers Park. And to explain how he got to the UN, he always tells audiences about Damo’s death. He did so in his presentations at Wildwood too. But most of the talk was meant to inspire the students to think about how their passions could turn into careers, he said—even while they’re still in school. 

     Anonymous comments on the Second City Cop blog have called for Cunat and Viets-VanLear to be tarred and feathered and ridden out on a rail. “Put him in jail then find a crime,” one person wrote on the blog. 

          But other issues at the school upset parents too. In late May eighth-graders began the “Reparations Won” curriculum, which was mandated for CPS through the Jon Burge torture reparations package that was passed by City Council in 2015. According to several sources, some parents were concerned about anti-police bias in the curriculum—even though it was designed in partnership with the Chicago Police Department. Prior to the start of the curriculum Cunat held a meeting for concerned parents and even scheduled another session at the parents’ request—though no one showed for the second one. 

          On June 6, which ended up being Cunat’s last day at the school, Preib and CPD detective Adrian Garcia (a parent of a Wildwood student) gave a presentation at the school. According to local school council member Sandra Laase, who was present at their talk and gave a report about it at the LSC meeting last week, “there was no bias or trying to influence anybody” during the presentation. She noted that the students were engaged and “showed a lot of empathy and a lot of concern about the police and their work. . . . Maybe the students are better than some of us in the community.”