Next month, Mankato West High School is set to have a first day of the school year that’s sure to stand out.
While students are receiving their syllabuses for biology, U.S. History, and calculus, the American people will have their eyes set on one of the southern Minnesota school’s own—former social studies teacher and football coach Tim Walz.
The elevation of a former teacher to the No. 2 spot on the Democratic presidential ticket has thrust the 1,200-student school and the 8,500-student Mankato school district into the limelight. The district has been fielding calls from reporters from across the country while locals celebrate the ascension of one of their own to the national stage. That’s added to the usual excitement and busy rush that characterizes the run-up to a new school year, administrators in the district say.
“There is so much pride in our school community, in our Mankato community at large,” said Mankato West Principal Sherri Blasing, who is also Walz’s former next-door neighbor but taught at another school in the district while Walz worked in Mankato. “You just don’t expect your next-door neighbor to be a vice presidential candidate, and here Tim is.”
At the same time as it celebrates the success of a former teacher, though, the school district has to maintain political neutrality. Amid heightened attention, the administrators said, the district must cultivate an environment in which students and teachers can stay focused on learning.
Mankato Area Public Schools said as much in an Aug. 6 statement announcing Walz’s selection as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. The school system “anticipates increased media and public interest, and is prepared to manage this while maintaining a positive educational environment, and ensuring the privacy of students and staff,” the statement read.
“It’s been really exciting not only for the school district but for our whole community,” Superintendent Paul Peterson said. “As the vice president was in her deliberations for who she was going to be selecting, we had people on our team doing some anticipation work in the possibility that a former teacher was going to be named to the ticket. But nothing really prepares you for that moment.”
Walz’s teaching background is a key part of his identity
Walz’s background as a teacher has been a key part of his identity in his first days on the Harris ticket. Rally attendees at appearances in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan this week chanted “coach” as Walz shook hands and took the stage.
“Don’t ever underestimate teachers,” Walz said in Philadelphia on Aug. 5 in his first speech after Harris announced her selection of the Minnesota governor, who served 12 years in Congress representing southern Minnesota before his election as the state’s governor in 2018.
Walz has amassed an extensive K-12 policy record as governor. In 2023, he signed a law that provides free breakfast and lunch meals to all students, regardless of income, and signed a budget that included a $2.3 billion boost for K-12 schools and a number of other education provisions. He also signed a law last year requiring that schools provide free menstrual products to students. (Republicans have criticized the measure for its gender-inclusive language—the law’s text says the products must be available to “all menstruating students” in 4th through 12th grades —and begun calling Walz “Tampon Tim.”)
Walz began his education career in 1989 in China, where he taught English at a high school through a government-sanctioned program with Harvard University to send American teachers to the country. He went on to teach high school in Alliance, Neb., in the 1990s, where he met his wife, Gwen, then an English teacher.
The couple moved to Mankato, in Gwen’s home state, in 1996, where they both taught at the local high school. Walz’s teaching career ended before he was elected to Congress in 2006, but Gwen became an administrator in the Mankato district, according to her biography.
While Walz and Mankato are well known across Minnesota, the town of 45,000 and school district haven’t been in the national spotlight before—at least not on this grand of a scale.
Community members have been sharing memories from Walz’s time as a teacher
Blasing lived next door to Walz and his family in Mankato for 22 years. She remembers many interactions with Walz and his family across the fence that separated the backyards of their two properties.
Her favorite memory dates back to former President George W. Bush’s administration. Walz took a group of students to see the president speak during a 2004 campaign rally in Mankato, when Bush was running for reelection. Walz saw it as an opportunity for students to learn about civics while getting to see a sitting president. But they were asked to leave because one student had a sticker supporting John Kerry, the Democrat challenging Bush, on his wallet.
“Gwen and I were in the backyard at the time, working in the garden, and all of a sudden Gwen goes, ‘Tim just called me. I think he’s being detained by the Secret Service. Something about how one of the kids couldn’t get in,’” Blasing said.
Blasing invited Gwen over to eat pizza while they waited for Walz to return. When he got back, Blasing could see he was beside himself.
“Tim got home and told the story and he’s just like, ‘That’s not right. A teacher should be able to go see the sitting president when they’re in town,’” Blasing said. “That really, I think, was the catalyst to Tim’s political career.”
Walz said as much in a 2022 interview with Minnesota Public Radio, recounting how a security guard at the rally told Walz that he and the student “had been deemed a threat.” The security guard eventually let Walz and students into the rally, according to the interview.
As a teacher, Walz was known for challenging students to speak up when something didn’t feel right to them, Blasing said.
The principal describes Walz as a “gregarious” and “personable” teacher and politician, who has always been curious and interested in every student and person he meets.
In the days since he joined the Democratic ticket, people in Mankato and elsewhere have shared stories about Walz’s time as a teacher with reporters and on social media.
In addition to serving on the coaching staff that led the Mankato football team to a state championship, Walz was the faculty adviser to the high school’s first gay-straight alliance and he was known to host debates with fellow teachers on current events and teach history using “Jeopardy!”-style games.
In 1993, his high school geography class in Alliance, Neb., made a grim prediction, and they were proven right the following year, the Washington Post reported. Walz had asked his class to predict where the next genocide would take place. After reading history books, scholarly reports, and encyclopedias to study the conditions that lead to genocide, they correctly predicted Rwanda, where in 1994 members of the Hutu majority slaughtered members of the Tutsi minority. More than 1 million people were killed, according to the United Nations..
Walz’s personality and demeanor seem to have carried over to his tenure as governor and now the Harris campaign, said Peterson, who has met Walz but whose tenure in Mankato hasn’t overlapped with the governor’s.
“People around our community would say how he is presenting himself nationally is who you would see at the coffee shop, and who you would see in the hallways,” he said.
Mankato strives to balance neutrality with local pride
Walz’s addition to the Democratic ticket presents excitement, but also a challenge, for the Mankato district. While district leaders want to celebrate the success of one of their own, the district can’t endorse in a presidential race and is wary of doing anything that comes off as politically biased.
High schoolers begin school on Sept. 3. In the meantime, Peterson, Blasing, and their staff are preparing teachers to focus on academics while still celebrating Walz.
“Two things will be happening at once,” Peterson said. “No. 1, being really proud of the fact that there’s a local person who’s now risen on the national stage, and at the same time realizing that our core mission is about teaching and making sure kids are learning at high levels.”
Approaching this year with political neutrality is exactly how Walz would do it if he were still teaching, Blasing said.
“Tim wasn’t one to tell kids to believe this way or believe that way,” Blasing said. “It’s like, ‘Here’s the information. You need to form your own opinion and beliefs based on what you know and what your values are.’ And so we’ll continue to do the same things. We want to teach kids how to think, not what to think.”
At the same time, Walz’s prominence on the national stage could drive student engagement in civics lessons, said Peterson, who was a social studies teacher before he moved to district administration. The last thing Peterson wants teachers to do is shy away from talking about the presidential election out of fear of blowback for talking about politics, he said.
“We’ve got to talk about all the things that go into presidential elections and campaigns and strategy,” Peterson said. “The fact that somebody that’s going to be on the ticket is somebody that a lot of people around here know and know quite personally, that’s just another added layer of intrigue.”
Mankato educators hope to see Walz champion public schools
Both Blasing and Peterson said they’d like to see Walz use his new platform to raise awareness about the value of public schools.
“The promise of a public education to our country and to our kids is something that’s really special,” Peterson said. “I have no doubt that, when appropriate, Gov. Walz will talk about the virtues, the values, and the collective responsibility that we all have to support public education.”
Most of all, Blasing and Peterson hope Walz’s presence on the national stage will provide a boost for the teaching profession and the Mankato community.
“You couldn’t have a better spokesperson than Tim and Gwen because they are teachers through and through,” Blasing said.
