Tag: public schools

NY Pride Group Disbands After Drag Queen Founder – A School Board Member – Arrested On Child Sexting Charges

A New York LGBTQ+ advocacy group has canceled a scheduled pride parade and disbanded after its founder was arrested on child-sexting charges. 

Travis J. Longo, 46, of Cazenovia – a drag queen and a member of the Cazenovia School District Board of Education (of course), was arrested on Thursday and charged with four counts of endangering the welfare of a child after allegedly sending sexually explicit communications to a child under the age of 12. 

In a now-deleted Facebook post, the group Longo founded, Cazenova Pride Inc., announced that it is “canceling this year’s Pride Festival and all associated events, and we are dissolving as an organization.” 

“This decision follows serious criminal charges against Travis Longo, the founder of Cazenovia Pride Fest and a longtime figure in our organization,” the post continues. “Travis Longo has no further affiliation with Cazenovia Pride Inc.”

Longo, who reportedly performed as a drag queen under the name “Anita Buffem,” was listed as a “hostess” at the first Pride festival in Cazenovia in 2021, which was organized by Pride Cazenovia, The Blaze reports.

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Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders Announces Big Gains in Test Scores After Schools Ban Critical Race Theory and Gender Nonsense to Focus on the Basics

Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas has announced that the state is making big gains in education after moving to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory, gender nonsense and other forms of ‘social justice’ in schools.

It’s amazing what can be done when schools focus on teaching basic things like reading, writing, and math.

Sanders also encouraged teachers by raising their pay and creating incentives for success. She is basically doing the opposite of every Democrat governor in the country and it’s working.

FOX News reports:

Gov Sanders reveals ‘major breakthrough’ on education as red state positions itself as ‘blueprint’ for nation

As Democrats across the country criticize education programs in red states, Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is touting a major achievement in her state she hopes will serve as an education blueprint for all states, regardless of politics, nationwide.

“The thing we’re most excited about is the fact that so many Arkansas students are doing better now than they would have been doing pre-LEARNS legislation,” Sanders told Fox News Digital on the day her office announced a “major breakthrough” in education following implementation of a 2023 Republican-backed statewide education overhaul, known as the LEARNS Act.

The law also raised the minimum teacher salary from $36,000 to $50,000, created performance-based teacher bonuses, boosted literacy support, funded school safety initiatives and banned critical race theory and classroom teachings related to critical race theory, gender identity, sexual orientation and sexually explicit materials.

Arkansas public school students are seeing sharp gains on a new statewide exam, with proficiency rates rising more than 7% across all grades and subjects in just three years under the state’s conservative education reforms. Since 2024, student proficiency has increased by more than 7% and by more than 5% since 2025, according to the governor’s office.

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White Kids Are Now Less Than Half of All Students Enrolled in American Schools, Latino Numbers Surging

White students now make up less than half of all kids enrolled in American schools from pre-K through graduate programs, according to new Census Bureau data.

The shift represents a significant demographic change in the nation’s education system.

According to a report from Axios, as of October 2024, white non-Hispanic, non-multiracial students account for 48.8 percent of total enrollment across public, private, and homeschool settings.

This marks a decline from 46.7 million white students in 2000 to 36.6 million in 2024.

Latino enrollment has grown sharply over the same period.

In 2000, there were 10.2 million Latino students.

By 2024, that number had risen to 18.4 million, making Latinos the second-largest group at 24.4 percent of total students.

The demographic change is most visible in early childhood and K-12 education.

White non-Hispanic children make up around 47 percent of students in nurseries and kindergartens, and 48 percent in elementary and high schools.

In higher education, white students still hold a slim majority at 51.1 percent, though this is expected to continue declining as more diverse K-12 students move through the system.

The report did not state how many of the rising Latino population are illegal migrants.

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Public Schools Are In A Downward Spiral

After decades of steady growth, attendance in U.S. K-12 public schools has shifted drastically. Over the past five years, registration has fallen by 2.3 percent, or 1.18 million students, and schools show no signs of rebounding. Lower birth rates are the primary driver of the downturn. The number of births has decreased steadily in recent years, with 690,000 fewer children born in 2024 than in 2007.

California lost nearly 75,000 K-12 students as of the 2025-26 school year, a slide more than twice as steep as the previous year.

Since 2017-2018, the Golden State has seen a 10 percent decline.

New York City has also been hard hit.

As of the 2025–26 school year, 793,300 students are enrolled in K-12 schools, down nearly 10 percent from 2020.

The loss of enrolled students has prompted some desperate measures. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is offering “free” childcare for 2-year-olds regardless of their parents’ income. In 2024, parents of toddlers spent an average of more than $23,000 on center-based childcare, according to the NYC Comptroller.

For those still attending public schools, chronic absence—the percentage of students missing 10 percent or more of a school year—is a growing problem. As of January 20, the latest data show that chronic absenteeism, which surged from 15 percent pre-COVID to 28 percent in 2022, remains elevated at 24 percent.

Nat Malkus, American Enterprise Institute’s director of education policy, notes that the surge in absenteeism affects districts of all sizes, racial backgrounds, and income levels. However, the data reveal significant racial and ethnic disparities, with 39 percent of black students, 36 percent of Hispanic students, 24 percent of white students, and 15 percent of Asian students chronically absent.

A major factor behind rising absenteeism is that many students lack motivation to attend school. In 2024, Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation surveyed more than 1,000 Gen Z students ages 12 to 18 and found that only 48 percent of those enrolled in middle or high school feel motivated to attend. Only half said they do something interesting in school every day. Similarly, a 2024 EdChoice poll found that 64 percent of teens said school is boring, and 30 percent view it as a waste of time.

Additionally, a 2024 survey revealed that nearly 64 percent of school parents say K-12 education is headed in the wrong direction, up 8 points from 2023.

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White British Children Set to Become Minority in England’s Schools, Department of Education Data Reveals

England’s latest school census has revealed a historic demographic turning point, with White British pupils having fallen below 60 percent of the school population for the first time, confirming what critics of mass immigration have warned for years—the country is being transformed, potentially irreversibly, at breathtaking speed.

According to Department for Education data for the 2025–2026 school year, pupils identified as White British now make up just 59.7 percent of schoolchildren in England. Pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds have reached nearly 39 percent, a record high.

Only a decade ago, White British pupils made up roughly 70 percent of all schoolchildren. In just ten years, the share of White British children in England’s classrooms has fallen by around ten percentage points.

The data, for opponents of mass immigration, are not just school statistics, but evidence of a national transformation that has advanced without clear public consent, serious parliamentary debate, or honest warnings from the political class.

British academic and commentator Matt Goodwin has pointed to the figures as proof that demographic change is accelerating. He argues that classrooms offer the clearest preview of Britain’s future because today’s pupils will become tomorrow’s voters, workers, parents, and citizens.

The trend is visible across the education system. In state-funded secondary schools, the White British share has dropped from 71 percent to 59 percent over the past decade.

Primary schools show the same pattern. White British pupils have fallen from 68 percent to just under 60 percent.

But the nursery figures are the most striking. White British children now make up only 47 percent of nursery pupils, down from 69 percent in 2016–2017.

That means White British children are already a minority among England’s youngest pupils. This, for a growing number of critics of globalist imposed demographic change at a rate never before seen, is the real warning sign—not a distant forecast, but the demographic future arriving in real time.

London has already passed the point completely. White British pupils are now a minority in every one of the capital’s 33 local authorities.

The same transformation is spreading far beyond London. In Milton Keynes, White British pupils account for 41.5 percent of schoolchildren.

In Blackburn, the figure stands at 38.4 percent. Bradford records 37.3 percent, while Wolverhampton is at 34.5 percent.

The numbers are lower in some of England’s largest urban centers. Manchester stands at 28.7 percent, while Birmingham is listed at 23.6 percent in one section of the source material.

Leicester records 19.5 percent. Barking and Dagenham stands at 14.9 percent, Luton at 13.7 percent, and Slough at just 9.2 percent.

One section of the source material lists Birmingham even lower, underscoring how dramatically some areas have changed. But the precise local figure matters less than the national reality: the White British share of England’s school-age population is falling fast.

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4 California School Districts Under DoJ Review Over Gender Ideology, Sex Ed Policies

Four California public school districts face federal inquiries into whether their policies and practices regarding instruction on sexual orientation and gender ideology violate students’ civil rights.

The districts under Justice Department review are all in Northern California, with three in Monterey County—Graves Elementary School District, Santa Rita Union School District, and Soledad Unified School District—as well as San Francisco Unified School District. Their students range from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.

The reviews will determine whether the districts notify parents of their right to opt their children out of instruction on sexual orientation and gender ideology, also known as SOGI, and whether district practices align with federal protections against sex discrimination.

“This Department of Justice will not tolerate local school authorities trampling on the rights of parents concerning the education of their children,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the department’s Civil Rights Division said in a June 8 statement.

“The Supreme Court’s recent decisions in ‘Mahmoud’ and ‘Mirabelli’ have put all school districts on notice: policies that keep parents in the dark about sexuality and gender ideology in the classroom must end now.”

California law mandates sex education to encompass these topics, and state provisions give parents the right to opt their children out of the instruction on these subjects, either entirely or in part.

The San Francisco Unified School District has previously told its teachers that neither parental permission nor notification is needed to teach or discuss SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) topics in the classroom.

In addition, SOGI topics “appear to be embedded in California’s social studies and history classes,” according to the DOJ statement.

The reviews will also cover policies permitting access to single-sex intimate spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms, in addition to girls’ sports teams, based on a student’s perceived gender identity rather than sex. The Justice Department will decide whether these policies are in compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The four districts all receive federal taxpayer funding, subjecting them to Title IX’s prohibitions on sex discrimination in education programs and activities.

The department will evaluate whether the districts have enacted changes in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Mirabelli v. Bonta.

“Plaintiffs alleged that California’s policies permitted disclosure of a student’s gender transitioning at school only if the student consented,” the ruling states.

“Plaintiffs claimed that these policies violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim.”

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Massachusetts Public School District Permits Sikh Students to Carry Knives While Banning Weapons for All Other Students

Hopkinton Public Schools in Massachusetts has a policy that carves out a specific religious exception to its strict no-weapons rule, allowing initiated Sikh students to carry a ceremonial knife known as a kirpan on school grounds, while prohibiting knives, guns, replicas, and other weapons for every other student.

The policy, formally created in 2024, makes Hopkinton the first school district in the state to explicitly accommodate the kirpan for Sikh students.

These policies have received new scrutiny following the sentencing of Vickrum Digwa, a 23-year-old Sikh man convicted of murdering 18-year-old British university student Henry Nowak in Southampton, England, on December 3.

Digwa stabbed Nowak five times with an 8-inch dagger he carried in addition to a kirpan.

Under the district’s general weapons policy, possession of any “dangerous weapon” is banned on school premises, at school-sponsored events, or on school transport. This includes guns, knives, pocket knives, slingshots, brass knuckles, explosives, ammunition, and even replicas or toys that resemble weapons.

Violations can lead to suspension, expulsion, police referral, and possible exclusion by the School Committee.

However, the policy includes a dedicated section titled “Considerations for Recognized Religious Artifacts Resembling Weapons.”

It directs that sacred religious articles must be approved annually before the start of each school year or before the student begins carrying the item. The district evaluates exceptions based on school safety and reserves the right to suspend permission during specific events.

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Are Unions And Public Schools Violating Election Laws/Ethics?

The Easton Gazette received an email regarding the political activities of the Worcester County Public Schools. The email included this letter from a resident of the county.

The letter alleges that the school placed or allowed campaign material connected to a candidate for county commissioner to be placed into teachers’ school mailboxes within Worcester County Public Schools. The materials allegedly urge teachers to support certain candidates including this candidate and others and also have instructions for changing party affiliation.

As the letter states, this action could possibly pressure public school employees to feel that they must support a candidate who was once a system employee. Also, public schools, along with other public institutions, are supposed to remain politically neutral. Certainly, public materials and time should not be spent on political campaigns. One of the documents references a “building rep” which most likely refers to a “union” rep.

Again, these are allegations. However, they do bring up some important questions.

What is the law in Maryland regarding using school communications to promote candidates?

Maryland law prohibits teachers’ unions and any other group from using public school communication systems to promote or oppose political candidates, because doing so constitutes political activity using government resources, which is barred under both state ethics rules as well as federal tax rules for labor organizations such as teacher’s unions

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Outrage Mounts After Trans Athlete AB Hernandez Wins California Girls Track Championship

A controversial transgender athlete in California has caused another backlash after winning a girls’ track championship on Saturday.

AB Hernandez, a boy who identifies as a girl, won a medal at the CIF State Track & Field Championships being held at Veterans Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High School in Clovis, California, this weekend, according to the New York Post.

Hernandez, who competes for Jurupa Valley High School, was participating in the girls’ long jump. But this is not the athlete’s first time stirring controversy. All year, Hernandez has been at the center of protests by parents who want to protect girls’ sports from the incursion by boys identifying as girls.

Even as Hernandez was winning events inside, parents had gathered outside the venue to protest transgender athletes in girls’ sports.

Parents held signs blasting the ruination of girls’ sports. Signs included, “No boys. No bias. Just fairness, and “Save Girl’s Sports.”

Parents also accused event officials of allowing boys to compete and said males winning means the events have been “stolen from our daughters.”

Hernandez did not win the long jump event, but did come in third with a mark of 20 feet, 2 1/4 inches.

Ellie McCuskey-Hay of St. Ignatius High School and Gianna Gonzalez of Moorpark High School, who each jumped 20 feet, 3 1/2 inches, shared first place.

Corinne Jones from St. Mary’s High School achieved the fourth best jump but was still awarded third place, which she shared with Hernandez. This occurred due to a change in state rules.

The new rule, put in place last year, states that when a trans athlete places in a postseason event, the next-closest “cisgender” girl will share the placement.

Despite the rule being made to mollify parents, Hernandez’s mom was less than pleased with it. Early in May, Nereyda Hernandez ripped the new rule.

“All these big, tough ex-athletes at CIF, and the most courage they could muster was to hand this to coaches at AB’s meet today,” the group wrote. “Not one of them was brave enough to look her or her mother in the eye and say: ‘This whole project of violating Ed Code is aimed at you. A child.’”

Hernandez also wrote that her “heart was full watching A.B compete.”

“Today at the CIF Track & Field Finals, my heart was full watching A.B compete,” she wrote after her son’s competition.

“No matter how differently she may be seen by some, she continues to walk onto that field with the most beautiful smile on her face, gives EVERY event her ALL, and carries herself with grace, determination, and sportsmanship,” she wrote.

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Former Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Sentenced to Two Years for Falsely Claiming to be a Citizen and Illegal Firearm Possession, Will be Deported to Guyana After Serving Time

Former Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Andre Roberts, a citizen of Guyana who illegally lived and worked in the United States for over two decades, has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for falsely claiming to be a citizen on official employment forms and illegally possessing multiple firearms while unauthorized to even be here.

After serving his sentence, with credit for roughly eight months already spent in custody, Roberts will be immediately turned over to ICE and deported back to Guyana.

The illegal alien ran Iowa’s largest school district, serving 30,000 students, from July 2023 until his ICE arrest on September 26 of last year.

Before that, Roberts was superintendent of the Millcreek Township School District in Erie, Pennsylvania, the second largest in Erie County, overseeing thousands more American children.

Roberts entered the U.S. in 1999 on a student visa, which expired in 2004.

NBC News reports:

Roberts became the first Black educator to helm Des Moines Public Schools when he was hired in 2023 to lead the district of about 30,000 students.

After submitting a Social Security card and a driver’s license as verifying documents, Roberts stated he was a U.S. citizen in his application to the state board of educational examiners, which issued him a professional administrator license in 2023, the district said.

Before the sentencing, Roberts’ lawyers confirmed that was not true.

“Dr. Roberts made a fatal mistake when he completed an I-9 to work with Des Moines Public Schools … falsely affirming he was a United States citizen,” his lawyers wrote in a 173-page brief to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

When agents went to arrest him, Roberts attempted to flee.

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