Carolyn Fath
Muldrow (left) and Mirilli have each other’s back as they hit the campaign trail.
Ananda Mirilli and Ali Muldrow are running again for Madison school board. They’re vying for different seats, but taking an unorthodox collaborative approach, syncing their election announcements, strategizing on messaging and supporting each other’s campaign efforts.
“I value being able to have another person of color on the campaign trail,” says Muldrow, who, with Mirilli, discussed their respective runs in a joint interview at Isthmus’ office. Madison’s approach to diversity, says Muldrow, has been to secure token representation in groups and on boards. “We have to move away from that. We need a school board that is reflective of the students we serve.”
Mirilli says she and Muldrow have had many conversations around how they could mount parallel but mutually supportive runs for office. “It’s an incredible benefit,” says Mirilli. “I ran at a time when six people were running for two seats," adds Muldrow. "I was the only person of color. Sometimes … I was the only person of color in a room of 300 people.”
Mirilli, a native of Brazil who has lived in Madison since 2005, came in third in a three-way primary for Seat 5. The top vote-getter, Sarah Manski, dropped out of the race the day after the primary but by then it was too late for Mirilli’s name to appear on the ballot for the April election. TJ Mertz won the election and has served since then. Mirilli is running again for Seat 5. Mertz did not return a call seeking comment on whether he is running for reelection.
Muldrow, who grew up in Madison and is black, ran for the school board in 2017 in an open election for Seat 6. She advanced to the general election, where she lost to Kate Toews. She is now running for Seat 4, currently held by James Howard, who has served since 2010. Howard told the Wisconsin State Journal in 2016 that his third term would be his last, but he did not return a call seeking confirmation on his plans.
Both Muldrow and Mirilli have worked in education for years and are racial justice advocates. Muldrow was recently promoted to co-director of GSAFE, a statewide group that works to create safe school environments for LGBTQ students. An out member of the LGBTQ community (she identifies with the “B” and “Q”), Muldrow and her partner, Sandy Welander, have two daughters, ages 4 and 9. Both girls attend Isthmus Montessori Academy Public, which began operating as a public charter this fall for grades 4K through 9th grade.
Mirilli works on racial disparity issues in special education at the Department of Public Instruction. She is a single mother with a daughter at La Follette High School who is just about to turn 16.
As women of color, Mirilli and Muldrow say they would bring much-needed insight to the seven-member board, which currently has two people of color, Howard, who is black, and Gloria Reyes, who is Latina. Both are motivated by Madison’s extreme achievement gaps between white students and students of color.
“We have a majority of children of color in our school district,” says Mirilli, noting it is hard watching white leaders “learn what it’s like to be a person of color with a child in the Madison school district.”
“A lot of us already know,” she adds. “We are already ready for this job. We don’t have to go through this learning curve.”
Mirilli says her daughter has struggled in the district, and Muldrow says she did as well as a student in Madison’s schools. They say the system needs to change for students of color to thrive. “Our students are not the problem,” says Mirilli. “Our families are not the problem.”
Mirilli filed her declaration of candidacy Dec. 5; Muldrow plans to file Dec. 7.
If elected, Mirilli says she would work to address violence in the schools, strengthen restorative justice practices (she formerly worked on restorative justice issues at the YWCA), increase resources for mental health and counseling services and reduce practices that disproportionately affect students of color and students with disabilities.
Muldrow and Mirilli say that the energy from state schools Superintendent Tony Evers’ win as governor has been infectious and that both are looking forward to greater resources being directed to public schools. Muldrow, a writer who has pioneered spoken word instruction in Madison, says she would work to prioritize the arts — including dancing, theater and music — so that students have arts classes every day. “We have to make sure we don’t have just one art teacher at every school,” she says. “Having arts every day and bringing in more dance and pottery and theater teachers … creates environments in which kids love learning.” She also wants to see the district implement medically-accurate, consent-based, LGBTQ-inclusive health education.
Muldrow says she is above all motivated by the transformative power of education. “I’m not running just as a candidate of color. I was an advocate for education long before I had children. I experienced the disparities Madison produces.”
[This article was corrected to note that a second person of color, Gloria Reyes, who is Latina, is a member of the school board.]
