WOKE values are necessary, not political

Yes, public school teachers do teach WOKE values for an essential reason:

To enable our students to become Wide Open to Knowledge and Enlightenment

The values teachers use as a basis of instruction are ones that are necessary to the effective operation of a well organized and effective classroom. WOKE values are basic classroom management, They also contribute to student well-being for a positive and flourishing year. 

Each year the first week or so of classes are dedicated to building rapport among class members and the teacher to set up the conditions which will provide optimum learning conditions for every student in the class. 

We get to know one another. We set common rules together. We establish the goals for the year about what we will learn and be able to do. We begin to establish a rhythm of work that can produce progress toward those goals. We clarify why we are studying the things we are learning. 

Across my career, I mostly taught high schoolers, so by the time students got to my class they had set rules every year for quite a few years. They knew what they wanted a classroom and course experience to be like. 

Together students would set rules for the class. Through a process of brainstorming and refining, rules usually distilled into a few fairly similar items, things like

Respect one another 

Respect our physical space 

Listen when others speak/take turns

Do the work /Participate/Learn

As the teacher, I agreed to keep the same rules, stressing that my goal for the year was that every member of the class learn and feel emotionally and physically safe to learn. So, I committed to not demeaning or discounting their concerns or needs, and to not let others who entered our space do so either. 

In younger grades the process of developing class norms might seem different with simpler vocabulary and more guidance needed.  Sentences like "Be Kind to One Another" might substitute for Respect One Another.  

The point is, certain conditions are necessary if a group of 20-30 people are to inhabit the same space, interact, and work together every day for 9-10 months. Working together requires mutual respect, honest and inquiring interchange, and our best efforts at understanding. In a classroom the elements of respect that seem so missing in external communication these days, particularly in politics and media, are necessities.

WOKE values are not just luxuries to a school classroom. 

So, Yes we do teach mutual respect, kindness, and the practice of understanding; not because they are a political stance or unique religious teachings, but because they are necessary for learning.