As Lisa Walker shepherded the Monadnock Regional School District through a pandemic reopening plan in the summer of 2020, she received a pair of emails within minutes of each other.

“The first one absolutely lambasted me for thinking that it’s okay to require masks and [said] there’s no real virus, and the other one was the complete polar opposite,” Walker said. “That’s where it started to really erode.”

Walker, a Peterborough resident who would go on to serve as superintendent in the district until 2023, looks back on that period as the moment when her profession of three decades underwent a seismic shift. Though she had dealt with angry families before, Walker had never experienced such intense animosity directed at her. On multiple occasions during that period, she contacted the police, concerned for her safety.

When Walker transitioned last year to a part-time superintendent role in the small town of Grantham, she initially thought the level of vitriol directed at school administrators like her had subsided. But over the last year, as state and federal policies around diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, school funding, and gender identity have taken center stage, Walker said she noticed a marked increase in anger-fueled rhetoric directed at those who lead educational institutions.

“The way in which people started to disagree during COVID never went away, and it’s getting worse again,” she said.

Walker, 54, signed a multi-year contract in Grantham, believing it would serve as a fitting coda to a career in education that included being named New Hampshire’s superintendent of the year in 2022.

But over the last few months, she decided she can no longer take the politicization that increasingly consumes her work.

“Every time I get another email, or there’s another attack on something related to public education, it just drives my blood pressure up,” Walker said.

As she steps away from her profession earlier than anticipated, Walker is sounding the alarm around what she sees as the dire straits facing public education. Her thoughts offer an inside view not ordinarily shared publicly by superintendents, who typically steer clear of matters of political debate.

“I’m concerned that a lot of the great things and progress that has happened to public education over the last 40, 50, 60 years is in danger of being undone,” she said.

In a pair of interviews over the last week, Walker said that she is at a loss for how to convince parents that schools don’t “indoctrinate” or “groom” students, as some members of the Republican party claim.

“I can’t keep having the same arguments and battles. I don’t want to have those arguments and battles with folks,” she said. “It really takes a toll on you.”

She is frustrated, as well, by the way that the concept of DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion – has been co-opted as harmful.

“That’s what public schools are,” Walker said. “That’s what we represent: we serve all students. Everyone’s welcome. It doesn’t matter where you live. It doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is – it doesn’t matter. None of that matters. It doesn’t matter if you have a disability – you’re welcome with us.”

Grantham is one of 15 school districts in the state that declined to certify compliance with a Trump administration ban on so-called “illegal” diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, according to a state Department of Education webpage, though that order has since been partially blocked by a federal judge. Walker said that while Grantham doesn’t violate any state or federal laws, the directive did not contain a “good definition” of the Trump administration’s interpretation of those laws.

Walker may be the most vocal superintendent in the state, but she is not the only school administrator facing the headwinds of political pressure.

Earlier this year, for example, Bow and Dunbarton superintendent Marcy Kelley faced down an unprecedented House bill calling for her removal in the wake of her decision to remove parents from a sporting event for protesting the participation of a transgender girl. Kelley received an outpouring of support, the legislative effort fizzled, and a federal judge ruled earlier this month that Kelley’s handling of the situation was “entirely reasonable.”

Mark MacLean, the director of New Hampshire’s school administrators association and the former superintendent of Merrimack Valley and Andover, said superintendents have increasingly been thrust onto the front lines of responding to the most contentious political issues facing the country, in addition to the other responsibilities they have always had like running a school district and keeping students safe.

“If you put political divisiveness and hyperbolic politics on top of that, it complicates things, because you are often looked to to opine on things, and they don’t teach that in superintendent school,” MacLean said.

As she transitions out of education, Walker is preparing to enter another service profession. Her husband is Peterborough Fire Chief Ed Walker, with whom she has served as a per-diem and part-time EMT on the force since 2021. She is now in the process of obtaining an advanced license.

Thinking about her next step, Walker sees the EMT job as a return to her roots.

“I get to talk to people and I get to help people, which is exactly why I got into education, because I liked kids and I liked teaching kids and I liked seeing them learn,” Walker said. “I like helping people and seeing them feel better, even if it’s only for the 15 or 20 minutes that I’m with them to get them to the hospital.”

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.