Kissner

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual History Kissner worked as a math and science teacher at CT English Middle School in the Loma Prieta Joint Union School District, starting in 2012. In 2018, after a deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students around the country organized a walkout that took place in March 2018. Because Kissner believed the walkout was organized by “politically-partisan activists to further an anti- gun agenda using the nation’s impressionable youth to exert political pressure on lawmakers,” he objected to the District excusing the students’ absences and believed this violated state law. In contravention of express directives from school administration, Kissner “elected to enforce state truancy laws in his classroom.” He gave three students in his class who participated in the walkout failing grades on a quiz administered that day. According to Kissner, his action was “wildly unpopular” among parents and caused a great deal of tension in the District with his superiors and colleagues. Kissner contends parents “took to media to protest his grading decision,” and after statewide news attention, Kissner and his wife “began…