Tag: public schools

Oklahoma School District Mismanaged Millions Of Dollars, Audit Finds

A recent audit of Oklahoma’s Tulsa Public Schools reported financial mismanagement, noncompliance with state law and district policy, and a lack of transparency by administrators.

State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd said auditors reviewed $37.7 million in Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) expenditures between 2015 and 2023 and found that $29 million was paid to consultants. Byrd said auditors found 1,450 discrepancies in 900 invoices and 90 vendor records.

The report also alleged that TPS may have violated a state law prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in Oklahoma’s public schools.

Byrd released the audit report during a press conference on Feb. 26 in Oklahoma City. She said Gov. Kevin Stitt requested the audit in 2022 after Devin Fletcher, the system’s former chief talent manager and equity officer, resigned amid allegations of mismanagement.

In October 2023, Fletcher pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He admitted to stealing $603,000 from TPS and the Foundation for Tulsa Schools, a nonprofit created to support TPS programs. Byrd said he was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Byrd alleged Fletcher only perpetuated mismanagement that TPS administrators had engaged in since at least 2018.

“Fletcher’s misconduct was the result of a much larger problem,” Byrd said.

She said that the TPS board shared some responsibility.

“Had board members acted with more diligence … they would have been in a much better position to prevent Fletcher’s malfeasance and to provide the oversight that state law requires,” Byrd said.

According to the report, TPS administrators routinely covered expenditures with foundation money. In this way, the report alleged, they avoided TPS policy 5202, which required requests for proposals, competitive bidding, and itemized invoices for any expenditure greater than $50,000.

Using foundation money also allegedly enabled them to hide much of the mismanagement from TPS board members since the board did not routinely review foundation expenditures, according to the report.

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Ontario school children face compelled medical surveillance or suspension

Ontario school children are currently caught in the middle of an ongoing issue regarding student rights, medical privacy, and the power of public health authorities. Under the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA), students attending Ontario schools are required to be vaccinated against certain diseases unless exempt for medical, religious, or philosophical reasons.

However, the recent push by public health officials to have students disclose their vaccination status and face suspension for non-compliance is raising serious privacy concerns.

The problem lies in the ambiguity between ISPA and the Education Act. ISPA stipulates vaccine requirements, but suspension orders are the responsibility of school principals under the Education Act, not public health authorities. This confusion is leading to violations of students’ fundamental right to a free public education, with some students at risk of being unlawfully suspended for failing to disclose their vaccination status.

The pressure to disclose private medical information is causing significant distress among parents and children alike. There are increasing concerns about the safety of centralized digital health databases, which have been vulnerable to data breaches and unauthorized access. With healthcare data a prime target for cyberattacks, parents are understandably worried about the security of their children’s sensitive medical records—which is big business for hackers.

Parents are resisting this growing pressure, with some viewing the disclosure demands as a violation of the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA). PHIPA requires informed consent before the collection of medical information and protects against coercion. However, the current approach by threatening suspension or else puts this principle into question.

The Ministry of Education was contacted for clarification, but media representatives Ingrid Anderson and Brook Campbell failed to respond days later. The inquiry focused on the confusion between ISPA and the Education Act, and how these conflicting laws are affecting students’ right to education. Additionally, clarification was sought on how medical privacy is being protected for parents wishing to uphold PHIPA.

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Washington State Launches Bullying Investigation into Teen Girl Who Refused to Play Against Trans Opponent

Officials of deep blue Washington State have launched a full-blown “investigation” alleging “harassment” against a teen high school girl who refused to take the court against a transgender player on an opposing girl’s basketball team.

The Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR) filed a complaint against the school for teen Frances Staudt, a girl who plays for the Tumwater High School girl’s basketball team.

At issue is Staudt’s refusal to play in a game on February 6 after she noticed that one of the players on the opposing team, Andi Rooks, is a transgender athlete and her subsequent accusations that the school district moved to punish her for her position on transgender athletes.

Staudt says she asked Principal Zach Suderman and Athletic Director Jordan Magrath to remove the male player or stop the game. However, Suderman noted that the state’s governing body for sports, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, has rules allowing students to participate under their chosen gender. Staudt also says that Rooks “brutalized” her teammates on the court during the game, and she offered a video to prove her point.

After stating her position, Tumwater school officials launched an investigation into the girl, accusing her of “harassment,” “bullying,” and “misgendering” against the visiting transgender student.

The Staudt family has countered by accusing Suderman of ridiculing the girl over her ideals. The family also says that school officials threatened Staudt’s brother for taking video of the game.

The Staudts also allege that school officials harassed them after they posted about the issue on their personal social media accounts. At one point, Rook’s father allegedly sent threatening text messages to the Staudt family, demanding that they remove the posts.

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Former Connecticut high school student sues teachers for letting her graduate while unable to read or write

A former Connecticut high school student is suing her teachers for letting her graduate while she was unable to read or write due to her learning disability. 

Aleysha Ortiz, 19, is seeking $3 million in damages from staff at Hartford Public Schools district for alleged bullying, harassment and/or negligence. 

Ortiz claims she requested educational resources and support for years – but her special education teacher instead chose to yell at and humiliate her in front of other students, often bringing her to tears. 

The teenager graduated unable to read or write. She struggled to even spell her own name during an emotional interview about her education with ABC affiliate WTNH.

‘My time in Hartford Public Schools was a time that I don’t wish upon anyone,’ Ortiz told the outlet. 

When Ortiz moved from Puerto Rico to Connecticut in first grade, she struggled with a language barrier compounded by a speech impediment, dyslexia, and ADHD. 

‘Every first day of school, I would tell the teacher I cannot read and write so please be patient for me, so everyone knew,’ she told WTNH. 

‘I would cry knowing the people who had big titles knew this was happening, and no one stepped up to do something about it.’ 

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Female HS basketball player refuses to play against boy; gets investigated for ‘harassment’

A 15-year-old girl at a Washington State high school is under investigation for “bullying” and “harassment” for allegedly “misgendering” a male player on an opposing girls basketball team.

According to a complaint from the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism, earlier this month Tumwater High School player Frances Staudt noticed during pre-game warm-ups that her team’s opponent had a biological male on its roster.

Tumwater Principal Zach Suderman and Athletic Director Jordan Magrath confirmed this was the case as Washington Interscholastic Activities Association policy allows students to “play on the team that aligns with their ‘gender identity.’”

In addition, state officials have voiced objections to President Trump’s executive order barring biological men from competing on women’s sports teams.

The attorney general’s office said “we are repulsed by the president’s dehumanization of the trans community,” and Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal called the EO “discrimination against trans female athletes.”

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The Prussian Model and the failure of personal ethics

The system of education that we use in the United States (and many other nations) is called the Prussian Model. Born of Prussia’s military failings in the Napoleonic Wars, the German kingdom developed an “education” system designed to indoctrinate children, year-by-year, from age 6 to 16, into full compliance with the state and its military leaders. The point was, bluntly, to ensure that “no German soldier would ever disobey an order again.”

The system worked. To the world’s horror, German soldiers and citizens — despite growing up in what seemed like a liberal democracy — a socialist liberal democracy at that — committed any atrocity asked of them during World War II.

The Prussian Model largely explains why American and British schools are so often staffed by compliant rule followers and petty tyrants.

“But I hope that the irony of the phrase helps to justify my decision to let students climb into school through the window. Who was I to judge their reasons for being late? What if they were taking care of a sick sibling? What if they were traveling a long distance because they’d been camped out on someone’s couch last night? What if they planned to skip school, then had a change of heart at the last minute? The inherent message of penalizing kids for being late, instead of just getting them into the classroom as quickly as possible, is Dude, if you’re going to be late to class, don’t even bother. Just stay home.”

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Department of Education Caught Funding Teacher Training Program Implying Babies Are Racist

The cultural and political rot at the Department of Education runs deep.

According to material shared by the conservative anti-DEI activist Christopher Rufo, the department funded a teacher training program implying that babies develop racist traits from the age of just three. 

In online training session shared by Rufo, the instructor explained the issue of “Racial Awareness in the Early Years.”

Her training is supported by a PowerPoint that states:

AT 3 MONTHS — Infants who are shown pictures of faces can visually categorize them by race. They often show a preference for faces reflecting the race they see most often, which is typically their own race.

AT 9 MONTHS — Infants are unable to distinguish the facial features of people from racial groups other than their own unless they frequently see books and images featuring racially diverse people.

AT 2 YEARS —Children make strong associations between racial features and human behavior, and begin to use racial categories to understand behavior. Children are observing and internalizing power dynamics among children and adults.

AT 3 YEARS — Children of all races demonstrate social biases primarily by attributing positive traits to the dominant (white) race. Children can respond to positive messaging about their own and others racial identities.

AT 5 YEARS —-Children of all races demonstrate social biases primarily by attributing negative traits to non-dominant (non-white) races. Children are capable of recognizing and acting against racial injustice.

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Trump Issues Executive Order Pulling Federal Funding From Schools Still Enforcing COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Friday, pulling federal funding from U.S. schools who still enforce COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

The order bans “federal funds from being used to support or subsidize an educational service agency, state education agency, local education agency, elementary school, secondary school, or institution of higher education that [still] requires students to have received a COVID-19 vaccination to attend in-person education programs.”

The order requires the department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take the lead and “provide a plan to end coercive COVID-19 vaccine mandates.”

Although the vast majority of schools have already dropped COVID-19 vaccine mandates, the order fulfills Trump’s campaign promise to “not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate” — while also discouraging a similar scenario from happening in the future.

According to the National Academy for State Public Health, twenty-one states currently still have bans on COVID-19 mandates in schools.

The order follows after President Trump’s executive order last month, which pulled federal funding from K-12 schools teaching critical race theory (CRT), as it “Indoctrinate[s] [children] in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.”

“Such an environment operates as an echo chamber, in which students are forced to accept these ideologies without question or critical examination. In many cases, innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics,” the order continued.

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Texan Allegedly Bullied By School Over His Skin Color, Trump Support Asks Supreme Court To Take His Case

Inside the Texas Capitol, on the back wall of the Senate chamber hangs a hard-to-miss oil canvas smattered with carefully painted soldiers wielding swords and cannons. The colorful battle scene depicts a pivotal moment in the Texas Revolution when approximately 900 Texas soldiers managed to defeat a much larger group of soldiers from the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto in just 18 minutes.

One of the most famous Henry McArdle illustrations in the frame shows General Sam Houston, whose horse was just shot out from beneath him, being beckoned by an “unnamed and unarmed aid” offering him a new mount. The mystery man is claimed by eighth-generation Texan Brooks Warden, who, nearly 200 years after seven of his ancestors fought in the battle of San Jacinto, faces a very different and very important battle of his own.

Twenty-one-year-old Warden is a plaintiff in a years-long lawsuit alleging students and school administrators in the Austin Independent School District in Texas violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through repeated racial harassment.

“Starting when I was 12 up until the end of high school, I was attacked physically and emotionally because of my race. Being a white Christian, conservative male, I was beaten. They threatened to kill me and verbally abused me daily,” Warden told The Federalist.

Until now, Warden was unnamed due to his status as a minor when the lawsuit was filed. Now that he’s surpassed his teenage years and there is a new development in his case — a petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court — Warden is ready to speak about the intense bullying siege he faced from faculty and peers alike.

“I know what I believe, and I won’t be swayed. I’ve taken punches to the face for defending the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “I was never scared to speak my mind. I was terrified to walk down the halls, though.”

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Governor Lamont Proposes Universal Preschool, “Seeded By $300M From The Fiscal Year 2025 Surplus”

Governor Ned Lamont today announced that he is urging the Connecticut General Assembly to approve legislation he is proposing this session that would implement universal preschool.

“I want Connecticut to lead on early childhood education, and that means making preschool affordable and accessible for all of our kids,” Governor Lamont said. “Access to early childhood services is massively important to the state’s success, not only because these programs provide valuable tools for children that will lead them to professional achievements in the future, but also because being able to enroll your child in care right now means that parents can join the workforce and earn an income that supports their family. Connecticut has an opportunity to make an investment in our future by expanding access to affordable preschool.”

The governor’s proposal includes depositing a portion of the state’s anticipated surpluses over the next several years into a brand-new fund known as the Universal Preschool Endowment. The endowment would be seeded by $300 million from the fiscal year 2025 surplus, and in the following years any unappropriated surpluses from the General Fund will continue to be transferred into it. The endowment will be managed by the Office of the Treasurer, and the commissioner of the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood may expend up to 10% of the balance of the endowment in any fiscal year.

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