For many years, I have put together the School Board Candidates’ Forum. During the March 2021 Town and School Board elections, I invited (now School Board Member) Nate Wheeler to participate with Mike McLean at the Forum. Wheeler declined. He told me point blank he doesn’t want to participate whatsoever, no matter who moderated, because he doesn’t know enough about the Milford School District. For the record, I give the candidates the questions weeks before the event and even allow them to bring written responses to the questions. I then asked him why is he even running for the School Board. He told me he would have to talk to more people “from all sides” to get a clear answer. That concerned me as a Milford voter.

From the beginning, many parents and teachers were concerned about outside political influences with Wheeler’s sudden last-minute write-in candidacy and how this will affect their child’s education. For example, when State Senator Gary Daniels was doing Nate Wheeler’s last-minute campaigning at the polls. Mr. Daniels typically introduces an amendment at the annual deliberative sessions to cut the Milford school budget across the board in the vicinity of $1 million. Daniels’ annual proposals would result in the layoff of more than two dozen classroom teachers and enormous classroom sizes. Experts agree that small classroom sizes are best for learning. Gary Daniels’ proposals are not surprising considering his efforts to derail public education at the state level. This extremism is certainly not a win for children, and it makes me wonder about the possible political motivations behind the push for Wheeler’s last-minute write-in candidacy.

Nathan Wheeler was homeschooled, as are his children. I don’t have anything against homeschoolers. But, it doesn’t make sense why someone who doesn’t want the Milford School District to educate their kids suddenly takes an interest in being on the Milford School Board without even knowing why they are running.

We are in the middle of the worst pandemic in a century. School boards across the country are dealing with violent anti-public health crowds at their meetings. At our last school board meeting, the meeting had to be ended early for fear that some audience members would violently attack certain members of the School Board who support a mask mandate.

Chairwoman Judi Zaino directed an evacuation of the audience from the room for public safety concerns. However, Nathan Wheeler, totally out of order, objected and rilled the crowd, which eventually led to the adjournment of the meeting. After the end of the meeting, these rowdy audience members walked out with Nathan Wheeler, and they all gave him high-fives. It seems apparent Nathan Wheeler’s goal was to obstruct the School Board’s duties and prevent any vote on masks from taking place. Wheeler put the safety of his fellow Board Members at risk, which is a violation of his oath of office.

I call upon Nathan Wheeler to resign for riling up a potentially violent crowd. Additionally, I call upon School Board to censure him, remove him from committees, and open an impeachment inquiry for violating his oath of office.