Tag: public schools

Ohio School Board to Debate Whether Two Teachers Who Mocked Charlie Kirk’s Death Should Be Fired

The Miamisburg school board in Ohio is meeting on Thursday night to debate whether two teachers should remain employed after appearing to mock Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who was horrifically assassinated at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. 

Band teacher Steve Aylward allegedly posted a comment on his Facebook page about 31-year-old Kirk’s death, appearing to suggest he called for his own assassination, and social studies teacher Rachel O’Connor was caught on video allegedly telling students Kirk was a “terrible person.” A video of her comments subsequently went viral on social media, WDTN reported. 

Petitions have reportedly been made, both for and against the educators continuing to hold state-funded positions of influence over young minds.

Parent and Miamisburg alum Tony Huey, who had O’Connor as a teacher, created an online petition calling for the teachers to be terminated. He told the local outlet that her remarks about Kirk “isn’t something that shocks me coming from her.” He said many parents like him do not want teachers who make derisive comments about a man who was publicly assassinated influencing their children. He said he hopes the school board makes the right call.

“If they don’t, this is definitely something, you know, I’m going to take further,” he said. “Maybe the next Miamisburg City Council meeting that they have and even further than that if we need to.”

The Miamisburg school board will meet Thursday night at 6 p.m. The public will be given a chance to speak at the end of the meeting.

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Twelfth Grade Math And Reading Scores Are Worse Than Ever, Thanks To ‘Equity’  

The U.S. Department of Education recently released test results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, showing that American high school seniors’ math and reading scores have dropped to a new historical low.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “Twelfth-graders’ average math score was the worst since the current test began in 2005, and reading was below any point since that assessment started in 1992.” Among these high school seniors, only 35 percent of high school seniors are proficient in reading, and a mere 22 percent in math. These troubling statistics contribute to an ongoing downward trend in educational outcomes that we have witnessed in recent years.

Extensive research confirms that extended school closures and remote learning during the Covid pandemic — largely influenced by the demands of teachers’ unions — have played a major role in the significant learning loss students are grappling with today. However, it’s crucial to recognize, as noted by the Journal, that declines in reading and math scores were already evident before the pandemic, and school closures only intensified an already alarming trend. The root cause of the troubling test scores among American youth lies in progressive education policies that undermine merit, favor ideological indoctrination over substantive learning, and promote the reduction of discipline in schools. These policies led to a crisis in education that we now must address.

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Teacher LIES About High School Student Who Was Suspended After Being Assaulted For Wearing MAGA Hat in Honor of Charlie Kirk

A high school boy in Laguna Beach, California, was suspended after being accosted for wearing a MAGA hat in honor of Charlie Kirk.

Laguna Beach is a liberal enclave in mostly conservative Orange County, California.

Zach Hornstein wore a MAGA hat on campus at Laguna Beach High School last Thursday to honor Charlie Kirk, just one day after the TPUSA founder was assassinated at an event at Utah Valley University.

Hornstein said a girl grabbed his MAGA hat and threw it into the trash in the girls’ restroom. The girl used profanities to attack Trump.

He then jokingly told a group of girls to leave the country if they didn’t like the US.

“I made a joke towards them and said, ‘If you don’t like it here, Canada’s open borders, feel free to go,’” Zach Hornstein told Fox 11.

This is when a teacher lied about what Zach Hornstein said to the group of girls.

“They’re saying I told a group of girls to go back to where they came from, which I never said that,” Hornstein told Fox 11. “When they called in the girl that was involved, she literally told them that I never said that.”

Hornstein’s mother blasted the school and said her son was targeted for his conservative political beliefs.

“I think it’s a double standard,” Hornstein’s mother, Janet Semenova, said. “I think kids who have certain political beliefs are held to a different standard than kids who have other political beliefs.”

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Stop Sending Your Kids To Schools Where Teachers Celebrate Murder

Last week, the leftist culture of death claimed another prize victim. A modern-day Socrates, Charlie Kirk bearded the lion in its den by going onto college campuses to challenge the ideas of students, professors, and anyone else who happened to be there through respectful dialogue. And like Socrates, Charlie was so successful in changing the hearts and minds of young people that the left had to kill him to shut him up.

On cue, Democratic leaders offered tepid denunciations of the political violence they inspire before deflecting to President Trump, Jan. 6, and, of course, gutting the Second Amendment. The Democrats’ radical base, on the other hand, was far more honest; they gleefully praised the murder of one of Western civilization’s greatest defenders.

At the forefront of these demonic celebrations were members of the educational establishment. While both school districts and state governments are taking action against these ghouls, the damage has already been done. Teachers do not just impart knowledge; they also shape our children’s characters. A system that has granted such power to murder-loving ideologues cannot be redeemed; it must be destroyed and remade.

The True Purpose of Education

Up until the modern era, the purpose of education went beyond mere economics. The early Renaissance writer Petrus Paulus Vergerius explained the moral nature of the liberal arts:

We call those studies liberal which are worthy of a free man; those studies by which we attain and practice virtue and wisdom; that education which calls forth, trains and develops those highest gifts of body and of mind which ennoble men, and which are rightly judged to rank next in dignity to virtue only. For to a vulgar temper gain and pleasure are the one aim of existence, to a lofty nature, moral worth and fame.

With the advent of mass public education in the industrial era, this ancient focus on “moral worth and fame” was supplanted by more practical concerns. Workers in the local factories needed to be more concerned about doing their jobs in the most efficient way possible rather than grappling with the great ideas of Western civilization.

The pragmatism of John Dewey, the godfather of modern American education, made his approach to moral education vague at best. For him and his pedagogical heirs, character is not established on timeless principles inculcated from youth but must be subject to constant re-interpretation to fit ever-changing modern contexts. This paradigm shift enshrined the poison of moral relativism at the center of American schooling, where it festers to this day.

In the 20th century, families, religion, and social associations were still strong enough to keep the “vulgar tempers” produced by these schools in check. As the left has chipped away at these institutions over the decades, the educational establishment has seized more and more responsibility over shaping the character of its charges, to the point where it actively hides its efforts from parents and seeks to punish those who dare to complain.

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Schools Make Kids Crazy

Almost one-third of government schools nationwide are now surveilling the mental health of students. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker recently signed a bill to bring “universal mental health screening” to two million Illinois students as part of his Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative. But this rescue effort will ravage many students and is a warning shot to parents across the nation. Manhattan Institute fellow Abigail Shrier warned that the new Illinois law will mean “tens of thousands of Illinois kids get shoved into the mental health funnel and convinced they are sick. Many or most will be false positives.”

If politicians want to help kids, they must recognize how government schools systematically undermine students’ mental health. 

The Covid school lockdowns nuked the mental health of millions of young Americans. A 2024 JAMA Original Investigation found that between 2018 and 2021, young people saw an almost 300% increase in the number of hospital emergency visits for eating disorders and suicidal ideation. Suicide attempts increased 250% during that time. Depression and anxiety skyrocketed among youth from the start of the pandemic, but politicians and policymakers ignored the mental carnage that Covid policies inflicted.

A 2021 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found that 44% of high school students said they “persistently felt sad or hopeless in the past year.” Females were almost twice as likely to be depressed, with 57% “persistently felt sad and hopeless” versus 31% of male students. School shutdowns dismally failed to thwart the spread of Covid. After schools reopened, students were hassled to comply with idiotic mask mandates that did nothing except multiply anxiety. 

  Schools are subverting students’ mental health by endlessly hectoring them to doubt or despise their own bodies. These school antics reached epidemic level even before the start of the Covid pandemic. In 2019, the state of Maryland issued regulations to promote “viewing each student’s” “gender identity and expression” as “valuable.” Government officials and political appointees arrogated to themselves the prerogative to redefine gender in the state of Maryland. Montgomery County, the largest school system in the state, announced that it would choose books for the curriculum “through an ‘LGBTQ+ Lens’ and ask whether books ‘reinforced or disrupted’ ‘stereotypes,’ ‘cisnormativity,’ and ‘power hierarchies,’” according to a brief filed at the Supreme Court by parents who successfully challenged the school system. That brief also noted that “teachers are told to frame disagreement with [pro-LGBTQ] ideas as ‘hurtful,’ and to counter with examples of ‘men who paint their nails’ or ‘wear dresses.’” The goal is to instill in children “a new perspective not easily contravened by their parents,” as the county school board admitted. 

The indoctrination produced a 582% increase in the number of kids self-identifying as “non-binary” in Montgomery County schools. “Disrupting children’s thinking” has been so successful that almost half of the students identified themselves as non-binary. But non-binary kids are far more likely to suffer mental illness. One survey found that more than half of transgender and non-binary youth considered committing suicide in 2022. That has not stopped other school systems from openly or covertly campaigning to sway children to repent or revolt from how they were born. 

Schools have bludgeoned kids with “Chicken Little – The Sky is Falling!” environmental propaganda for decades. The result, according to the American Psychological Association, is that 58% of American youth are “very or extremely worried about climate change” and 43% said “climate change impacted their mental health.” Harvard Medical Magazine reports that for many young people, “worry over threats of future climate change results in panic attacks, insomnia, obsessive thinking, and other symptoms.”

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School district defends threatening girls if they object to males in their restroom, risking probe

AMaryland county known nationally for Navy football games is playing a much riskier game with the federal government, flaunting its school district’s threat to punish female students who protest males in their restrooms despite the Trump administration’s steps to yank federal funding from several districts across the Potomac with the same policies.

Libs of TikTok made viral what Anne Arundel County Public Schools says has been on the books for six years and on “signage” for a year: Students are allowed to use restrooms corresponding with their gender identity.

But it’s not clear whether the warnings appear in the boys’ restrooms, which if not would single out students for differential treatment based on sex and facially violate Title IX.

“In the girls bathroom at Old Mills HS [high school],” the Libs of TikTok tipster wrote. “I’m told there is not one in the boys bathroom. AACPS refuses to protect our girls.”

The sign is specific to Old Mills, and both its words and design – with three rainbow spectra – make clear students who disagree can be subject to discipline for purported bigotry.

Titled “AACPS Bathroom Use Policy,” the sign says in all caps “students have the right to use the bathroom that matches their expressed gender identity,” without limitation. 

“It is against AACPS policy for an AACPS student to engage in discrimination or harassment based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression,” the sign reads. Its motto: “Productive Respectful Inclusive Determined Engaged,” with the first letter of each word highlighted to spell the acronym PRIDE.

Threatening to punish students for protesting the opposite sex in their restroom is a ticket to a federal investigation, with the Department of Education concluding Tuesday that Virginia’s Loudoun County Public Schools violated Title IX by punishing boys who objected to a girl who identifies as a boy in their locker room and was recording them as they entered.

America’s richest county practiced a “sex-based double standard” by failing to “meaningfully investigate complaints of sexual harassment” by the boys “concerning the presence” of the girl in their locker room, while “thoroughly” investigating her complaint against them.

The department gave LCPS, about an hour from D.C., 10 days to rescind the boys’ suspensions, review its findings to verify the discipline is “warranted” and not disproportionate relative to “students who engaged in similar conduct and who had comparable disciplinary histories,” and formally apologize for its improper investigations of complaints.

LCPS must also train all high school and county staff “who receive or respond to reports of sexual harassment under Title IX,” the department said. It’s one of the five northern Virginia counties to refuse to change its gender identity policies following Trump administration demands and be placed on “reimbursement status” by the feds as a result.

The district did not respond to queries on how it plans to respond.

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Over 100 Radical Leftist Teachers in Texas Will Have Their Certificates SUSPENDED and Face PERMANENT BAN from Public Schools After Celebrating Charlie Kirk’s Assassination and Calling for More Violence

More than 100 Texas educators are now facing the end of their teaching careers after posting vile, hateful, and violent content celebrating the assassination of conservative leader Charlie Kirk.

Governor Greg Abbott announced on Sunday that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has begun investigations into teachers who cheered Kirk’s murder and even incited additional violence online.

Abbott confirmed that these educators will not only have their teaching certifications suspended but will also be permanently barred from working in Texas public schools.

In a strongly worded letter to superintendents, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath condemned the educators’ despicable behavior, noting that such conduct may constitute violations of the Educators’ Code of Ethics.

He confirmed that all documented cases have been referred to TEA’s Educator Investigations Division.

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Under the Radar: Nation Ignores Latest School Shooting; Bx Investigates

With the compounding of last week’s horrific events and traumatic anniversaries, many missed (or simply couldn’t process) the Evergreen High School shooting.

Bx is an investigative journalist and the civilian authority on Satanic accelerationism networks that are repeatedly revealed as connected to mass trauma events. While the eyes of the nation were on Charlie Kirk, Bx was looking at Evergreen:

“On September 10, 2025, as the nation reeled from the public assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk during a speaking engagement in Utah, another Com/764 connected school shooting unfolded in the quiet town of Evergreen, Colorado. Kirk’s death – which has been described as the most high-profile political assassination since MLK – resulted in a nationwide manhunt, sparked a slew of conspiracy theories, and dominated the headlines for days. The resulting chaos allowed the Evergreen High School shooting to slip under the radar, only emerging several days later as the ADL and other left-leaning influencers tried to paint it as a neo-Nazi motivated attack to distract from right-leaning calls for justice in Kirk’s death. A tragedy can truly never go to waste in America.

The Evergreen school shooting and the Charlie Kirk assassination took place almost simultaneously. Kirk was shot at 12:23pm and the first 911 call reporting an active shooter at Evergreen High School was made at 12:30pm. Unlike the widespread media coverage of other recent school shootings – the Annunciation Church school shooting in Minneapolis, the Antioch High School shooting in Nashville, and the Abundant Life Christian School attack in Madison, Wisconsin – the Evergreen High School shooting was barely a blip on the radar. Early reports were scant, but it was reported that 2 students were in critical condition and that the shooter had died. The chaos of the day made it very difficult to follow both stories as they unfolded. […]

Holly’s digital footprint had ties to online subcultures like the True Crime Community (TCC) and Order of Nine Angles (O9A) influenced groups like 764 and NLM, drawing obvious parallels to the recent shootings perpetrated by Solomon Henderson in January and Natalie Rupnow in December. This footprint has been referred to by the FBI as Nihilistic Violent Extremism (NVE) and points to a decentralized web of online influences that intersects with harmful groups such as 764, NLM, and Com.”

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DOJ Declares School Dissent Protected Under First Amendment

Attorney General Pamela Bondi issued a memorandum to all United States Attorneys highlighting the Department of Justice’s policy to prevent and act upon violations of parental rights and First Amendment liberties in educational settings. 

Bondi directed United States Attorneys to work with federal, state, and local partners to identify and respond to credible threats against parents whose federal rights have been violated.

“The First Amendment guarantees the right of every citizen to speak freely, assemble peaceably, and petition the government for redress of grievances-including at public school board meetings,” the memo said. “These rights do not yield to political trends or bureaucratic convenience. While schools must maintain order, such authority cannot be used as a pretext to silence dissent or punish parents for expressing their views. 

The new memo says it will protect the right of parents to dissent during school board meetings. 

“Let me be clear: when school board members, administrators, and other government officials threaten law-abiding parents, they can and will be held accountable,” the letter said. 

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Florida To Investigate Teachers Found Celebrating Charlie Kirk Assassination

Florida’s Department of Education announced on Sept. 11 that it will look into public school teachers who, on social media, celebrated or justified the assassination of Turning Point USA CEO and founder Charlie Kirk.

Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas sent a letter to school district superintendents telling them that he would be investigating after it was brought to his attention that some educators had posted “despicable comments on social media regarding the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk.”

“These few are not a reflection of the great, high-quality teachers who make up the vast majority of Florida’s educators,” he wrote.

“Nevertheless, I will be conducting an investigation of every educator who engages in this vile, sanctionable behavior.”

Florida’s Department of Education told The Epoch Times in an email that the commissioner was prepared to use all of his power to hold educators responsible if the investigation proves they should not be in a classroom based on their behavior.

That power includes revoking their educator certificate.

“Although educators have First Amendment rights, these rights do not extend without limit into their professional duties,” Kamoutsas said.

“An educator’s personal views that are made public may undermine the trust of the students and families that they serve.”

The commissioner cited Rule 6A-10.081 of the Florida Administrative Code (F.A.C.), titled “Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida,” which holds the state’s certified educators to a set of ethical guidelines.

Kamoutsas said that a teacher could violate that rule if his or her conduct “causes a student or his or her family to feel unwelcome or unwilling to participate in the learning environment.”

He also cited sections of two Florida statutes that authorized the commissioner to discipline and sanction the certificate of an educator who “upon investigation, has been found guilty of personal conduct that seriously reduces that person’s effectiveness as an employee of the district school board.”

“Teachers are held to a higher standard as public servants and must ensure their conduct does not undermine the trust of the students and families they serve,” the commissioner said on X.

“We will hold teachers who choose to make disgusting comments about the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk accountable. Govern yourselves accordingly.”

The official action came after several voices across social media were raised to flag and speak out against people justifying or even cheering the assassination of the conservative influencer.

The social media app BlueSky was required to speak out against some of its users’ comments.

“Glorifying violence or harm violates Bluesky’s Community Guidelines,” the company said. “We review reports and take action on content that celebrates harm against anyone.

“Violence has no place in healthy public discourse, and we’re committed to fostering healthy, open conversations.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis praised Kamoutsas’s actions to hold the state’s teachers accountable.

“Celebrating the assassination of a 31-year-old father of two young kids is disturbing; that teachers would be among those who do so is completely unacceptable,” he said.

Since that announcement, several people began posting screenshots on X of teachers they caught publicly celebrating the assassination, and tagging Florida leaders and the respective school districts.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), an organization known for defending First Amendment rights on school campuses across the country, to get its take on this move by the Sunshine State.

Senior Program Counsel Stephanie Jablonsky told The Epoch Times in an email on Sept. 12 that while public school teachers retain their First Amendment right to speak as private citizens on matters of public concern, they do not have unlimited protection. However, the actions could be seen as unconstitutional if termination of employment is solely based on the disapproval of a person’s opinion.

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