Radio show interview of former Green Bay School District Superintendent Claude Tiller released

GREEN BAY — The Atlanta radio show interview resulting in the resignation of Green Bay School District Superintendent Claude Tiller was released Wednesday afternoon.

The interview obtained by the Press-Gazette is a Facebook Live video from the show's host that is separate from the radio station's officially recorded interview. The Facebook Live video includes both on air comments and conversations between Tiller and the host, Adrienne Berry, during commercial breaks.

Tiller appeared on Berry's Feb. 6 radio show "REALationship Talk," and in their near two-hour-long conversation, Tiller talked about student mental health, applying for the superintendent job, re-energizing clubs for students and staff of color, the need to hire more teachers of color and his vision to make the Green Bay School District known for its education.

During one of the commercial breaks, Tiller called a district principal a "wicked witch," describing how she was treating an employee of color at the school.

Tiller emphasized the need for more teachers of color in the district.

The reason Tiller was in Atlanta was to recruit teaching students from historically Black colleges and universities. It was the first of four planned trips to recruit teachers of color, he said.

Over 60% of Green Bay students are students of color, and its teaching staff is over 90% white. That's a disparity that needs to be addressed, according to Tiller.

"Because I have good teachers that strive to learn the culture of different populations, but you're not in that culture," he said.

Berry asked Tiller how important it is to him that his students see teachers that look like them.

"It's very, very important to me because when kids look up when they're having challenges, I want them to see somebody in front of them that looks like them," he said.

Research shows test scores, attendance and suspension rates are all affected by how well the demographics of teachers match those of students. The Press-Gazette has previously reported on barriers to pursuing higher education and a lack of peers who are of the same background that can create additional hurdles for students of color to earn a teaching degree.

Teachers of color and from other minority backgrounds also leave the profession sooner than their white counterparts, due in part to what they perceive as a lack of support and a sense of belonging in their school communities.

During a commercial break, Tiller talked about how teachers of color leave the district because there is no sense of community for them.

"Shame on us for not embracing them and formulating a community," he said.

Schools with majority white teaching staffs further exacerbate the problem since students of color lack role models to show them that they, too, could be teachers. A key part of closing achievement gaps and improving educational outcomes for students of color could be increasing the diversity of the teacher workforce, according to the U.S. Institute of Education Sciences.

That's why Tiller visits multiple schools each morning before he goes to the office, he said in the interview.

"Not only does all kids see me as the first African American superintendent, but my Black and brown kids see me as well," he said. "So now they can say, 'I can aspire to one in a school district.'"

During a commercial break, Tiller calls district principal a 'wicked witch' for treatment a staff member.

During a commercial break, while talking about teachers of color not feeling a sense of community, Tiller referred to an employee who he said was being targeted by a district principal.

Tiller said he has to move the employee just to protect him.

"This wicked witch she signed, she's leaving at the end of this year," he said. "She's doing everything in her possible to get him."

Then Berry said that people don't want to have those kinds of conversations, to which Tiller agreed.

"The first thing they say, 'Who me?' Well, B-I-T-C-H of course it's you," he said.

In a statement accompanying the video, Tiller said that he was unaware that his "off-the-record, personal conversation was being captured."

However, at the beginning of the video Berry explained to Tiller that she was filming on Facebook Live. It's not clear whether he knew that the Facebook Live video was capturing his statements between commercial breaks.

As Green Bay's first Black superintendent, Tiller was giving a 'voice to the voiceless,' he said.

It took Green Bay almost 150 years to hire a person of color as superintendent.

"What people don't understand is that not only do I have to walk a certain way and talk a certain way, I can't hang out in certain circles because if I do not make it — heavy is the head that wears the crown — and if I don't make it, then that closes doors for everybody," Tiller said.

"For another 147 years," Berry said. To which Tiller responded, "absolutely."

Tiller said the mindset in Green Bay for Black and brown people is like stepping back in time. When he joined the district, Tiller had people coming up to him crying, telling him not to leave.

"I'm here to bring voice to the voiceless," he said.

"I try not to tear up when I think about this, because what has transpired prior that you have been so oppressed and so pressed down, that you cannot speak and you don't feel that you have a voice?" he continued.

Tiller wanted to create teaching moments for staff on race.

Earlier in the show, Tiller talked about debunking microaggressions among staff when he got to Green Bay. Microaggressions are the everyday slights, insults, putdowns, invalidations and offensive behaviors that people experience in daily interactions, according to the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

Later, Berry asked Tiller how he has conversations about race.

"When you say the microaggression, I point that out and that is a learning process," he said. "So I paint it as a learning process for everybody that's involved. I'm not attacking anybody. I want you to learn better. I want you to look at life through a different lens that I'm coming from that you may not have seen."

In conversations with senior leadership in the district, Tiller talked with them about how to make changes, he said.

"I tell my whole cabinet there, 'You have been in the sauce for so long, that you just don't see. You have jaded lenses now. And I'm coming in from the outside in, and I'm telling you how this looks from the outside. And how do we go about changing this process?'"

Barely two months into his time as superintendent, Tiller got a report from an education consulting group reviewing the district's administration that found senior leaders had created a "dynamic of distrust and antagonism."

Tiller talked about the district needing to understand the difference between equity and equality.

Tiller said that Green Bay gets equality confused with equity. Equality is when everything is equal and the same.

Equity, on the other hand, recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome, according to George Washington University.

As Tiller explained it on the radio show, equality is when you give every child the same shoes, all the same size.

"They get up the next morning, they got to try to walk to school," he said. "A pair of shoes is too tight, a pair of shoes fits just right and a pair of shoes is too big. So those kids with the big shoes and too tight shoes, they can't come to school because it wasn't done equitably."

But if each child is fit with shoes that are their size, all get what they need in order to be progressive and move forward, he said.

The Green Bay School District uses equity in one of its slogans: "Engagement. Equity. Excellence."

Tiller had recently reactivated a staff group called Voices of Equity where district staff of color can meet and talk freely about anything and everything, he said.

In a statement accompanying the video's release, Tiller said the dialogue delved into critical issues of equity and pronounced achievement gaps in school districts. He engaged in "necessary, albeit uncomfortable, conversations and deep introspective analysis as a pathway to resolution," the statement said.

He wanted to set the bar high for students and teachers.

During the interview, Tiller talked about setting high expectations for both students and teachers.

"Teach them and elevate them," he said. "They should know something more when they cross across your threshold than they did prior."

Never in his career has he not had students meet his expectations when he set the bar high, he said.

"I have never, ever not set the bar, and my students have leaped over the bar 100% of the time," he said.

Tiller's background is in educational transformation and improving test scores. Before coming to Green Bay, he was the assistant superintendent over high school transformation with the Detroit Public Schools Community District, a district of 53,000 students and over 100 schools.

One of his first year goals in Green Bay was to raise reading scores by 5% and math scores by 10%.

Tiller echoes host's comment about Green Bay being 'lily white'

At the start of the show, Berry said that Green Bay is about as lily white as she's ever seen.

Tiller responded, "a lily on top of the lily." That comment was of concern for Ed Dorff, a former Green Bay School District principal and former board member, who spoke at a school board meeting Feb. 12 about Tiller's radio show interview.

The "reference to 'lilly on lilly' was a reflective echo of the program host's terminology, aimed at underscoring the conversation's context and the pressing need for systemic introspection and reform," Tiller's statement said.

Green Bay's population is 72% white, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Danielle DuClos is a Report for America corps member who covers K-12 education for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at dduclos@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @danielle_duclos. You can directly support her work with a tax-deductible donation at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA or by check made out to The GroundTruth Project with subject line Report for America Green Bay Press Gazette Campaign. Address: The GroundTruth Project, Lockbox Services, 9450 SW Gemini Drive, PMB 46837, Beaverton, Oregon 97008-7105.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Interview of former Green Bay Superintendent Claude Tiller released