When she started taking education courses in college, Jill Cullis thought teaching was just her backup career plan. She never imagined she’d be an educator, let alone spend more than three decades working in Colorado’s public schools, teaching students while helping colleagues find freedom from the teachers union. And she never imagined her workplace would become so politically hostile that she would be forced to retire.

“I remember my mom saying, I just kind of came alive when I would talk about teaching,” Cullis told IW Features. “It was sort of a plan B, but in reality, it was God’s plan A for me.”

Cullis was raised in a conservative household, and in high school, she read Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, which cemented the freedom-focused values she was raised with. So, when she became a teacher, this mindset led her to opt out of her local teachers union. She knew that the unions supported left-wing causes—to the tune of millions of dollars each year—and she did not want part of her paycheck going toward these politics.

“I work too hard for my money,” Cullis explained. “I don’t want my money going to causes and candidates that I don’t support. If I want to support that candidate, I’ll go ahead and use my own money and my own time to support that candidate.”

Along the way, she personally went out of her way to help other teachers understand their right to opt out of the union, coaching them on what to say, who to talk to, and how to get everything in writing. 

“I was the number one recruiter [for getting] teachers out of the teachers union [in my district],” she told IW Features. “One time, the president of the teachers union came out and slammed her fist onto the counter and said, ‘Who [here] is recruiting all the teachers out of the teachers union?’”

Cullis’ school district was not an all-union workplace, due in part to Colorado’s modified right to work laws, but until the Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision prevented unions from automatically taking dues from member—and non-member—paychecks, many teachers were all but trapped. And even in Colorado, Cullis says that many teachers didn’t know about union alternatives.

“The number one reason why teachers join the teachers union is because they want the liability insurance,” she said. “Well, we have a great other option … here in Colorado: It’s PACE (Professional Association of Colorado Educators) under the umbrella of the Association of American Educators.”

In the the Aurora Public Schools district where Cullis taught, the union offered new teachers $200 to join. But as Cullis explained, new teachers would save more than $200 in their first year alone by joining an organization like PACE instead of the union. Today, there are even free options for liability insurance, Cullis noted, with the free-to-join Teacher Freedom Alliance offering its members free liability coverage.

“[The union] would pressure me every fall,” Cullis said. “They’d say, ‘Jill, do you want to join the union?’ I’d go, ‘Look, I have one question. Does my money go to [the Colorado Education Association] and [the National Education Association]?’ And they’d say, ‘Well, of course it does.’ And I would say, ‘No, thank you.’”

Beyond the unions’ impact on teachers, Cullis also saw the negative effects the teachers unions had on students.

“What I did see were multiple times … where they actually had to cancel school because … all the teachers were meeting down at the state capitol to rally,” Cullis said. Of course, this meant that students were robbed of a day of learning. 

Cullis, however, decided not to participate in these walkouts. Instead, she went to work as usual to prove her own point: “[The protests are] hurting kids.”

“What about that single mom … [who’s] now got to stay home from her job as a waitress to take care of her kids because there’s no longer any school?” asked Cullis. “So, mom is having to lose a day’s worth of pay while the teachers go down and protest at the state capitol.”

Despite a lack of support from her district, Cullis stood up for what she believed in for years, but when her workplace took a turn for the worse around 2021, she was finally pushed into retirement.

“We were still coming out of COVID, and we had this [professional development course] every Wednesday,” Cullis explained. These sessions focused on critical race theory, and teachers were told, “If you think you’re not racist, well, you really are racist,” according to Cullis.

“I remember telling one of the guys, I said, ‘You know what? I don’t want you to apologize … because you’re black. That’s who God made you to be,” Cullis said. “And I’m not going to apologize because I’m white. This is exactly who God made me to be, and … the Bible says, God made me fearfully and wonderfully … in my mother’s womb, and he did the same for you.’”

Though she knew that her colleagues were aware of her views, Cullis said that she had not encountered too much overt hostility up until this point.

“Everybody knew I was a conservative in education, but it’s not like I proselytized it at all from my classroom or to my colleagues,” she told IW Features.

But the political situation in her school district, tracking the political situation in America, grew more and more tense. And Cullis says she faced increasing hostility from the school’s left-wing principal, Ronald Fay. 

“I wasn’t ready to retire, but … [Fay] made it really difficult for me,” she said. “He didn’t like my political views.”

During a routine evaluation, Fay refused to fill out Cullis’ performance assessment, indicating that she wasn’t meeting requirements and jeopardizing her “stellar” record, according to Cullis. COVID halted the evaluations process that Spring, but the experience still left its impression on Cullis. 

After she retired, Cullis learned that Fay had asked the human resources director how he could get rid of Cullis, despite her tenured status. But Fay didn’t have a concrete reason for wanting her fired: “It’s her beliefs,” the principal told HR, Cullis alleges. 

Then, Fay suddenly retired, and the news came out that he was charged with embezzling district funds and tampering with evidence, alongside allegations that he pressured teachers to change students’ grades to inflate academic performance. Cullis learned the full story behind Fay’s vendetta against her too late for her own lawsuit, but in the end, Fay may still face consequences for his other actions. 

IW Features reached out to Aurora Public Schools for comment, but they did not respond.

Even though she decided to retire in the face of a hostile workplace, Cullis continues her more than three-decade career, working for an education nonprofit and standing strong in her convictions. 

“If I could totally disband the teachers union, I would do that,” Cullis concluded. She added, “I think you pull that out at the root, and you’ve won a lot.”