Tag: public schools

REPORT: 3 California School Districts Suspected of Shielding Teachers From Sexual Abuse Allegations as Feds Launch Nationwide Probe

Two California school districts, suspected of protecting sexual predators and allowing them to teach, received letters from the Trump Department of Education on Friday in a national crackdown on schools sweeping sexual abuse allegations under the rug. 

The letters were sent to the Tulare City Unified School District and Wilsona School District.

The New York Post reports that Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent letters to school districts across the country, reminding them that federal law requires them to investigate allegations and prevent teachers accused of abuse from quietly moving to another school.

The Los Angeles Unified School District was already under scrutiny for reassigning teachers to different schools under an agreement with the teachers’ union.

This comes as the Education Department plans to launch a new initiative with 20 civil rights investigations into school districts that failed in their duty to address sexual misconduct by school employees, according to the Post.

California is believed to be one of the biggest offenders, with at least three school districts at risk of losing $50 million in federal funding.

Per the New York Post:

Tulare City Unified School District and Wilsona School District, located in Palmdale, were two of the districts warned under federal law to promptly investigate allegations of sexual abuse and harassment and block suspected predators from quietly moving to other schools — a practice known as “passing the trash.”

“Our schools must protect America’s children. Parents should never have to wonder whether their kids’ school employs and protects sexual predators,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said.

“Schools that receive federal funding have a duty to protect students, report sexual misconduct honestly, and follow the law.”

Los Angeles Unified School District has already been investigated over rules that allegedly shielded predatory teachers. An agreement between the school district and the teachers’ union guaranteed teachers accused of certain serious misconduct are reassigned — rather than immediately terminated or removed from student-facing positions — while investigations are pending.

Investigations are also targeting three school districts in Georgia and three in Michigan, as well as districts across 12 other states.

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SoCal Education Leaders Stole Nearly $20M From Schools; Report

A new report has revealed that a pair of Southern California school leaders separately stole nearly $20 million from their schools in order to fund lavish personal lifestyles.

According to The New York Post, the report was co-authored by the State Financial Officers Foundation, a watchdog made up of state treasurers and auditors, and OpenTheBooks, a nonprofit focused on transparency in government spending.

The cases of the two Southern California educators were among the most expensive examples of K-12 education fraud documented nationwide.

Jorge Armando Contreras, the former fiscal services director for the Magnolia Elementary School District in Orange County, was charged with altering school checks over several years to funnel $16.7 million into his personal accounts.

Contreras was spending the money on everything from a luxury home and a BMW to designer clothes and pricey tequila and federal investigators found stacks of cash stuffed into a mini-fridge and luxury designer bags at his home.

He was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison in 2024 and order to pay $16.7 million in restitution to the Magnolia School District in Orange County.

Another case highlighted in the report revealed that Janis Bucknor, the head of the Community Preparatory Academy charter school in Los Angeles, stole more than $3 million in taxpayer funds to cover travel, restaurants, shopping and private school tuition for her children.

Bucknor also pleaded guilty to spending more than $220,600 on Disney cruise line vacations, theme park admissions, and other Disney-related expenses.

According to prosecutors, Bucknor admitted in 2020 to stealing the funds, and was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, State Financial Officers Foundation CEO OJ Oleka said:

All fraud is harmful, but defrauding education dollars meant to help kids learn and succeed is especially hideous. The findings in this report should alarm every family, teacher, and civic leader.

The California cases were part of nearly 90 cases identified by a coalition of auditors over the past six years involving embezzlement, phony invoices, inflated enrollment, bid-rigging and kickbacks, among other crimes.

The report follows the Trump administration’s promise to crack down on government waste, with Vice President JD Vance leading a nationwide “War on Fraud” that has raised new questions about oversight of federal education spending.

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Woke activists push for ‘Black English’ to be taught in Democrat state’s preschools to combat ‘harmful language hierarchies’

California activists are calling for the state’s preschools to legitimize the use of Black English in the classroom.

Supporters say teaching the dialect, also known as African American English (AAE) or African American Vernacular English (AAVE), will help ‘combat harmful language hierarchies.’

The Black Californians United for Early Care & Education group is part of a movement advocating for Black English to be recognized as a legitimate, rule-based language in preschool classrooms on par with other languages.

Co-founder Dr Ashley Williams told PBS the movement is personal because she grew up being told by her family that the way she spoke at home wasn’t acceptable at school.

Williams says she felt ashamed and embarrassed by this and is spearheading the movement because she doesn’t want her two-year-old son to grow up with the same experience. 

‘I don’t want my son to walk into any room and feel like his voice is not valued or his perspective can’t be heard because he’s not saying it in one way or the other,’ she told the outlet. 

The advocacy group – known as BlackECE – has trained educators to support Black English speakers in the same way they support dual language learners. 

The group uses resources like the Black English Knowledge Brief and webinar series, which helps educators, caregivers, and school leaders better understand Black English, its roots.

It also offers ways to create classrooms that affirm children’s language and identity.  

It comes after the Golden State introduced a plan in 2020 to expand early dual-language learning and support bilingual children.

BlackECE argues that Black English should also be included as part of the scheme.

‘We talk about multilinguals, but we don’t include Black children who may be African-American English speakers,’ Xigrid Soto-Boykin, director of the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University, said.

‘We completely miss this subgroup of children that could also benefit from their language backgrounds to be sustained, but also to be leveraged for their own learning.’

According to 2020 research published by the National Library of Medicine, about 20 percent of US children and 44 percent of California children ages five to 17 are bilingual. 

As of 2023, 96 percent of Black Americans speak English fluently.

Around 88 percent speak only English, with the remaining respondents using another language at home and speaking English very well, according to Pew Research.

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Waste Of The Day: Stolen Education Grants

Topline: A North Dakota woman was convicted last month of five counts of theft for stealing $131,000 in state grants meant for after-school programs.

Key facts: Faith Dixon, 47, was one of the top recipients of $2 million that the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction awarded in October 2021 for its Out of School Time program to support children impacted by school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Her nonprofit, Faith4Hope, instead sent the funds to her then-husband’s food stand, her brother’s music and production company and her sister-in-law’s dance studio, according to court documents reviewed by InForum.

Dixon’s lawyers claimed she disbursed the money in “good faith” to help children, despite the conflicts of interest. But assistant attorney general Jeremy Ensrud showed some of the funds were spent on Dixon’s own “day-to-day living expenses.”

Dixon’s ex-husband pleaded guilty to theft last year. He admitted the grants to his food stand were not spent on providing culinary classes to children, as he promised the state.

Dixon’s other family members truly did spend their grants on helping children, Ensrud told InForum.

Last October, Dixon took a plea deal that would have sent her to prison for only 4 to 11 months, but she backed out because she had received “bad legal advice.” Now, she will serve 4 to 10 years.

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Mom Neglects to Mention a Chilling Detail in Glowing Article About Her Trans Child, Who was at the Center of Landmark Supreme Court Case Involving Boys in Girls’ Sports

The mother of a boy at the center of a landmark Supreme Court Decision is being blasted for an article she wrote that neglected to mention a shocking detail about her son.

As The Gateway Pundit reported , the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled in favor of West Virginia and Idaho’s laws banning biological males from girls’ sports after two biological male athletes, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Cooley Legal, sued the states to allow them to compete with girls. The ruling is expected to impact up to 27 states with similar laws on the books.

The cases are known as West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. The West Virginia case garnered the most attention, involving a biological boy track athlete who called himself Becky Pepper-Jackson.

16-year-old Pepper-Jackson had first started racing as a girl at the age of 12 and continued competing as a female until the Court finally ended his scheme for good.

While most sane Americans applauded an end to this blatant cheating, his mom has a completely different take.

In a USA Today post titled “Supreme Court ruling on trans athletes can’t change my daughter,” Becky Pepper-Jackson’s mother, Heather Jackson, slobbered over him as a “winner” despite the court ruling.

She lauded him for becoming “a leader in the fight for our trans kids’ civil rights” and for always smiling.

“The Supreme Court’s decision does not change who Becky is. It cannot take away her connection to the sport, the lessons it has taught her, or the friends she has made, Heather Jackson added.

“All that she’s learned about leadership, working together, challenging herself, managing disappointment, and building confidence is wisdom she will have forever – lessons we both are drawing upon in this moment.”

“Whatever comes next, Becky will be Becky,” she continued. “Her bravery, her joy, and her stubborn insistence on seeing the good in people shine as brightly as ever, and those attributes are a beacon for every other kid out there, and for plenty of adults, too.”

But Heather Jackson neglected to mention a quite disturbing detail about her son throughout the puff piece, one that destroys it.

Per a lawsuit from Adaleia Cross, one of Becky Pepper-Jackson’s teammates, the boy sexually harassed and threatened to r*pe them.

From Reduxx:

The suit alleged that Pepper-Jackson would say “suck my d*ck” to both the complainant and other girls on the team

“During the end of that year, about two to three times per week, B.P.J. would look at me and say ‘suck my d*ck.’ There were usually other girls around who heard this. I heard B.P.J. say the same thing to my other teammates, too,” Cross said.

“B.P.J. made other, more explicit sexual statements that felt threatening to me. At times, B.P.J. told me quietly, ‘I’m gonna stick my d*ck into your pu**y.’ And B.P.J. sometimes added ‘and in your a**,’ as well.

These comments were disturbing and caused me deep distress.”

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Backlash as Texas Approves ‘Unconstitutional’ Mandatory Bible Lessons in Public Schools

As education officials in Texas ban hundreds of books that run afoul of their interpretation of Christian morality, the State Board of Education on Friday approved a required reading list that forces the state’s more than 5 million public school students to read from the Bible.

The Republican-controlled SBOE voted 9-5 with one abstention to approve the list, which includes passages from the Book of Exodus as well as the Shepherd’s Psalm and the myths of Adam and Eve and David and Goliath.

“We’re going to stop watering down American history. We’re going to teach the truth. Our nation was founded as a Christian nation, and Texas is a Christian state,” Republican board member Brandon Hall—who is also a youth pastor at Cavalry Baptist Church in Springtown—said during a Thursday press conference in Austin.

That “truth” omits or marginalizes climate change, US imperialism, women’s history, the genocide of Indigenous peoples, slavery, and racism.

Evelyn Brooks, the only Republican SBOE member to vote against the required reading list, told CNN on Friday that she believes the board’s move is “unconstitutional.”

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FRAUD ALERT: Female New York Clerk Gets Caught Ripping Up and Trashing Ballots To Help Her Favored Candidate “Win” – New Election Ordered

A New York clerk was caught in a blatant attempt to steal a local election last month, prompting the state to order a brand-new one.

As The New York Post reported on Thursday, a Hempstead Union Free School District petition revealed that District Clerk April Keys tore up several ballots and helped smuggle them out of her office, which helped board president Victor Pratt ‘win’ his reelection campaign for the Hempstead Union Free School District on Long Island.

The election took place on May 19.

State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa ordered a new race to take place within 60 days, just hours after the petition surfaced.

The district issued the following in a statement to The Post:

The Board appreciates the Commissioner’s expeditious review of this matter, which enables the District to move forward with the revote in accordance with the Commissioner’s ruling.

Per the Post, Keys took the ripped-up ballots and tossed them into the dumpster. She also gave Pratt, a local DJ who goes by DJ Vic-Lover, absentee ballots to dispose of.

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Grammy-winning Democrat boasted about recruiting sex offender bandmate days before they performed together at school concert

Bobby Pulido, a Democrat and Grammy-award-winning musician performed at a middle school alongside a convicted sex offender bandmate.

Pulido’s close relationship with embattled accordionist Frankie Caballero is under increased scrutiny as his race for Congress heats up.

He is running against Texas Republican Monica De La Cruz in a crucial neck-and-neck race for control of the House of Representatives. Democrats only need to flip four seats to seize the majority.

The Democrat’s appearances with Caballero occurred both before and after he served a four-year sentence for indecent sexual contact with an eight-year-old girl from 2014-2017, the New York Post first reported.

In May 2018, one year after Caballero was released from prison and placed on Texas’ Public Sex Offender Website, Pulido boasted of recruiting Caballero to his band.

Days later, the Tejano singer played with Caballero at a benefit concert for a Texas middle school. Children were present at the concert held at the Richard R Flores Stadium, according to a report from Axios. 

The Daily Mail had previously reported on Pulido’s partnership with Caballero, but the middle school show was unknown until this week.

Caballero reportedly played with Pulido as long ago as the 1990s, when the accordionist faced other charges for sexual assault that were eventually dismissed.

He continued to be featured in Pulido’s shows from time to time until 2021.

His campaign manager, Abel Prado, previously told the Daily Mail in a statement: ‘Bobby extends his deepest sympathies and support to all of the victims involved.

‘Bobby was never made aware of Caballero’s sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that kind of history.’

But Pulido’s campaign has indicated that the singer was aware of some of his accordionist’s problems, acknowledging a struggle with ‘addiction.’

‘When Jimmy Montez management learned of Caballero’s criminal history in 2021 he was immediately fired and that relationship was severed.’ 

The Pulido campaign did not respond to the Daily Mail’s requests for comment about the school concert gig.

A spokesperson told Axios that Republicans planted the ‘nothing story’ and that Pulido is a ‘public figure who has been an open book for over 30 years.’

Comments from a 2019 podcast interview indicate that Pulido knew about his fellow musician’s brushes with the law. 

‘He can do anything with the accordion,’ Pulido said. ‘But get this, they locked him up. I remember when I started out, I went to get him out of jail.’

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LEAKED AUDIO: Gunderson Middle School Principal Reacts to O’Keefe Undercover Video Exposing Teacher Pushing LGBTQ on 11-Year-Old Children

The O’Keefe Media Group caught a Las Vegas middle school teacher breaking policies and pushing LGBTQ+ propaganda onto 11-year-old children.

Christopher Segal, an English teacher at Gunderson Middle School was caught on hidden camera admitting he coaches minors on coming out as queer.

The teacher, who goes by “Mx” also admitted to condemning black “MAGA” kids and lashed out at parents for not being supportive of their queer kids.

“I’ve had kids ask me, like, coach them on coming out [as Queer],” Christopher Segal told the undercover OMG journalist.

Segal admitted to breaking the law by calling the kids by their preferred pronouns.

“I break the law [CCSD Policies] and still call kids what they want me to call them,” he said.

“They [Kids] come out [as Queer], and I’m like, “awesome.” They know I’m queer,” Segal said.

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Chicago Teachers Seek Billions In Special Session For “What We Are Owed”

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has long been one of the most radical labor organizations in the country from its insistence on teachers being subsidized in political protests to members praising the former Communist regime in Venezuela. Now, with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the CTU is demanding yet another massive public infusion of money despite the dismal performance of its members in actually improving scores for Chicago children. They are calling for a special session and billions in more funding.

We have previously discussed how teacher unions have become virtual slush funds for Democratic Party operations, spending over a billion dollars on Democratic candidates and campaigns. In return, Democratic politicians have agreed to bloated pension and compensation packages that have driven cities and states into the red, particularly in Illinois.

It is a closed loop of influence and excess. The teacher unions funded Democratic campaigns and Democratic politicians then sign off on windfall union contracts without forcing any improvements for the actual students.

For these students, the system borders on the criminal. Rather than actually improve their educational results, the Chicago teachers (like unions and administrators in other cities) have lowered their proficiency standards. Even with that lowering, just 2 out of 5 children meet the lower proficiency standards. Forty percent of Chicago students are “chronically absent” from class.

According to the latest Illinois Report Card, 38% of the state’s public school students demonstrated proficiency in math last year. 52% showed ELA proficiency.

Nevertheless, teachers demanded the right to join May Day protests during work hours to speak against immigration enforcement, billionaires, and oligarchs. They called on citizens to boycott stores to oppose the super-wealthy and billionaires.

They are now demanding a special session to fund what “we are owed.”

Chicago Board of Education member Jitu Brown demanded “The $2 billion that we are owed just adequately funds, but when you are repairing harm you have to fund above and beyond.” Brown called on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who was previously a Chicago teacher and is generally viewed as owing his election to the unions, to repeat his December 2025 $1 billion tax-increment-financing push for the Chicago Public Schools.

As always, the CTU and IFT President Stacy Davis Gates framed the demand in class-warfare terms, calling on Gov. J.B. Pritzker to convene a special legislative session to raise revenue from the “ultra-wealthy.”

Of course, Pritzker did not respond by raising concerns about the dismal educational record for students, but by promising more money. While he acknowledged that they have increased spending every year, with the budget hitting $3 billion, he said the unions are right that they need even more money.

Notably, both the IFT and CTU are demanding that Pritzker reject a federal tax credit scholarship program that would provide tax credits for donations to scholarship organizations that fund education-related expenses for students in public, private, and homeschool settings.

The unions oppose any voucher system that would give poor families a real choice in seeking better education for their children. Both AFT president Randi Weingarten and NEA president Rebecca S. Pringle opposed voucher options.

Some of us have changed our views of vouchers in light of the stranglehold these unions have on public education.

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