Key to restoring control of public schools to their communities? Humble school boards
Far too many school boards and community college boards have rejected the traditional view that parents are in control of their children's education
School boards nationwide, much like the Los Angeles Unified School District, have become arrogant political advocates of the woke agenda pushing critical race theory, gender identity and other controversial, non-essential curricular modifications. (Photo: Tim Gray/Los Angeles Times)
In December 2022, a Loudon County, Virginia Special Grand Jury released a report condemning the county school system’s mishandling of two sexual assault incidents involving students at two local high schools. A young man, who claimed to be “gender fluid,” was accused of rape of a young girl in May 2021, inside a restroom at Stone Bridge High School. The district’s reaction was to transfer the attacker to Broad Run High School the following academic year.
Fast-forward to October 2021 and the young man repeated the same kind of attack on another female student at Broad Run. She was also raped. This time, he was arrested by County Police and the first assault then came to light. He was then charged with two counts of forcible rape.
The grand jury report was particularly critical of Superintendent Scott Zeigler, who made the initial decisions regarding the attack, including not making a police report.
Following the grand jury, which cited “a stunning lack of openness, transparency and accountability” on the part of administrators, the reluctant school board’s hand wasfinally forced and they fired Zeigler, after calls for his removal had been made for months by district patrons. The father of one of the girls attacked was even arrested at a board meeting where he publicly revealed the assault and accused the board of trying to cover up the attacks.
Not only was Zeigler arrogantly unaccountable for the assaults, but his administration’s endorsement of controversial curricular additions such as Critical Race Theory and gender studies. Parents were fed up. Still, the board’s firing of Zeigler was “without cause,” meaning the school system will continue providing him with his $323,000 salary — including a recent raise — and additional benefits for a full year.
This is just the most extreme example of school districts out of control and the school boards who do nothing to reign them in. Loudon County is just one of several school boards across the country have have chosen to ignore parents’ rights and tell them they have no say in how their children’s schools are run.
In an article titled “Arrogant School Board Ignores Wishes of Voters,” the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers recounts how a local school board in Fremont eliminated letter grading systems and went strictly to pass fail. Fully 60% of school patrons signed a petition demanding a retun to the previous grading system, but the school board refused.
In another allegation of arrogance by a school board, a common word used these days toward these public bodies, the Reno Gazette-Journal listed numerous instances in which the Washoe County, Nevada school board repeatedly ignored wishes of the community in providing an education to their children and implemented woke ideologies such as anti-white CRT and gender studies.
A strong indication of how serious parents are becoming about regaining control over the schools is the 2021 founding of the group Moms For Liberty. On their website, Moms For Liberty states the organization “is dedicated to the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”
The fact they were almost immediately the target of attacks by national teachers’ unions and Education Week Magazine indicates how afraid the education establishment is of losing its grip on the blatantly political agenda they have brought into the nation’s schools to brainwash our children.
Moms for Liberty has written a pledge for potential school board candidates to sign if they want to receive the organization’s endorsement at the local level.
“I pledge to honor the fundamental rights of parents including, but not limited to the right to direct the education, medical care, and moral upbringing of their children,” the pledge reads. “I pledge to advance policies that strengthen parental involvement and decisionmaking, increase transparency, defend against government overreach, and secure parental rights at all levels of government.”
In a hit piece published in October 2022, Education Week accused Moms For Liberty of having "denied more than a dozen requests since July from Education Week for interviews about its school board initiatives, role in book-banning efforts, and most recently, the parent pledge.”
Teachers’ unions and progressive activists like to accuse parental rights advocates of “book banning.” These are a prime example, however, of the kind of books being removed from school libraries nationwide. They have no place in elementary nor middle schools. Photo: Artemis Clay/Houston Chronicle)
Book-banning is a trigger word used by those opposing the agenda to restore parental rights. The first step in introducing scare tactics that conjur up images of Nazi Germany, as though that is comparable to the parental rights movement. From there, parental rights opponents fight efforts to force school district to post curricula on line so the public can see what is being taught.
They also combat efforts at the district and state levels to prevent so-called “gender transitioning” from occurring without parental assent and approval. That includes banning the use of “preferred pronouns” by students without pareantl permission. The lengths to which they would go to deny parents their rights in overseeing their children’s education doesn’t seem to know any limits.
Fortunately, Moms For Liberty has friends in high places. At the Moms For Liberty National Summit last July, speakers included Dr. Ben Carson, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and his wife, First Lady Casey DeSantis.
“It’s not about [politics], it’s about principle, getting involved and helping good people get to a point where they can have leadership skills,” the governor’s wife said. “I think parents were peering into the classroom during COVID. And they saw a lot of this stuff. And they said, you know, this isn’t gonna fly on my watch. But for the first time, you see people say, I’m going to do something about this.”
That’s what the opponents of parental rights don’t understand. Their agenda will not succeed. They’ve had 100 years to establish the agenda. Parents who have awakened to their duplicity will being it all down in just a matter of a couple years.
To do so, more conservative activist organizations like Moms For Liberty must become active in local schools and the elections for their school boards. Political consultants who usually concentrate on statewide and national races are going to have to get down into the trenches of local politics and identify bright young candidates who will stand up for parental rights.
Most important of all, voters have to get off the sidelines and participate in these elections they have typically ignored. School boards are the very foundation of influence for the future. These administrative bodies can either abandon their responsibilities to educational professionals with sinister agendas that deliberately destroy our younger generations, or they can assert control and drive these twisted, fraudulent excuses for educational curriculums out of our public schools.
Which will it be in your school district?