Student Group Wants To Know ‘WTF’ Is Happening To Iowa

This year’s legislative session activated young Iowans to speak out on issues ranging from private schools to LGBTQ rights to gun violence. Starting Line connected with members of some of the student groups leading the action and invited them to talk about how their organizations work, what inspired them to get involved, and what the future holds for them. This is part one of a multi-part series. 

Iowa youth are fed up with their schools being at the mercy of politics and, across the state, students are looking for ways to get involved to push back.

Enter Iowa WTF—the “WTF” stands exactly for what you think it stands for. The multi-issue youth-led organization educates students about legislation, how to get involved in government, and connects students across Iowa with resources and each other so they can mobilize about the issues that affect them.

“It’s all kind of been simmering for a while of students experiencing how much school has changed and how much just being a kid has changed because of COVID and then everything after that,” said Waverly Zhao the executive director of Iowa WTF and a senior at Johnston High School.

“I feel like our school environment has become super politicized,” she continued.

Iowa WTF was established in 2022 in response to a bill banning schools from teaching about systemic racism and sexism, and attempts to ban books that discussed race or racism or LGBTQ identities. At the time, the organizing was mostly concentrated on school districts in the Des Moines metro like Ankeny, Johnston, and Urbandale.

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This year, more students across Iowa were inspired to protest or speak out during the legislative session as more and more bills targeted how they could be educated and how some of them could live their lives.  Because of this, more student organizations were out at the front to combat those efforts.

Waverly said a lot of the energy came from the bills impacting education and LGBTQ rights, such as the bill banning trans students from using the bathroom they identify with, the trans-affirming health care ban, school vouchers, and bills to make it easier for books to be banned from schools.

All of it struck a nerve with Iowa youth.

“We as a generation are a little more welcoming to differences. And so having such direct hatred in bills was kind of a shock for us,” Waverly said. “Even if you’re not necessarily a part of those communities, those are our classmates, those are our friends, those are people that we see every day.”

Iowa WTF has organized walkouts across the state, including the early March walkout to protest anti-LGBTQ bills in the Iowa Legislature, which led to walkouts at about 47 schools across the state. Zhao said she knows some of them happened without her knowing.

“The fact that it was able to spread without necessarily being Iowa WTF doing it, but having students feeling empowered enough to do that, I think is just as equally as powerful no matter what,” she said.

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Waverly said one of the plans for the future is to establish new chapters in other parts of the state because, at the end of the day, the organization’s mission is to educate all Iowa students about issues that impact them and prevent harm to their rights and education. To that end, another goal is to expand the age ranges into the college and middle school levels.

“We’re definitely a multi-like issue organization,” she said. “Anything that impacts youth, especially, and that looks very different depending on where you are. But for the most part, it’s the same general idea of just not being brought in on these conversations and these decisions, yet we have to deal with the consequences.”

She said she also wants to see students getting even more involved and to keep the organization youth-led.  Teaching students how to register to vote, why they should vote, and getting them invested in that kind of work is another goal.

“We really need people to like start showing up to the polls and voting these people out, taking action beyond just being reactionary because rallying together can only do so much if it’s not followed by legitimate action,” Waverly said.

Most students, she said, enjoy having an outlet to talk about their political frustrations. Waverly wants the students who are able to vote to stay engaged and to keep other students in mind when they go to the polls.

The next step is to get a new leadership team in place because most of the current leaders are high school seniors, but Waverly said she’s encouraged by how many students wanted to be involved and still want to now that the session has ended.

Social media—Instagram in particular—are the keys to Iowa WTF’s ability to reach students across the state and to communicate and coordinate. Its Instagram account has 45 posts and over 2,500 followers. The majority of its videos get even more views.

“When I first started seeing all of these things occur [politically], I definitely felt alone,” Waverly said. “And so knowing that there’s other students around who are in this big support system with us is really great. And it also has opened up like a lot of doors and opportunities for all of the people in the group, too.”

Nikoel Hytrek
5/16/23

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