Tag: public schools

Burn After Reading: Colorado Teachers Told To Destroy Results of an Illegal Gender Survey

Not that many years ago, I ran across this little piece of fortune cookie/Bazooka Joe wisdom: “If you have to sneak to do it, lie to cover it up, or delete it to avoid being seen, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it.” And that is good advice. That is unless you are in a pitched battle against the heteronormative, white patriarchy. In that case, sneaking, lying, and deleting are not just permissible but admirable tactics. This is war, you know. Desperate times call for desperate measures. These are, after all, the times that try ze/zim/zir souls. In Jefferson County, Colorado, a number of parents are alleging that teachers broke state and federal laws and that the local teachers’ union, the Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA), is aiding and abetting the teachers in that effort.

Having students fill out surveys about their gender and preferred pronouns violates federal and Colorado state laws as those things constitute “protected information.” But CBS Colorado reports that the school district maintains that it is unclear as to the legality of such surveys. However, there are several lawsuits over the matter, and administrators instructed the teachers not to address the issue or conduct any surveys.

Parent Denice Crawford was happy with an email she received from the district reminding parents that mandatory surveys inquiring about students’ protected information are illegal. The email said that voluntary surveys are also prohibited unless parents can opt out of them. Crawford, who has three children in district schools, was surprised, to say the very least, when her son came home with a survey asking about his gender identity. She told the TV station she was “deceived, lied to, taken advantage of.” Other parents, who are members of Jeffco Kids First, said that dozens of teachers conducted such surveys and that the JCEA instructed teachers via email on how to keep the surveys secret. The email read in part, “…if you do a questionnaire, please make it a paper and pencil activity – any digital records are more permanent and may be requested under federal law.” Teachers were also advised to make notations about students but not hold on to documents. School board member Susan Miller said that the JCEA gave teachers a way to work around the law. That could put the teachers’ jobs and licenses at risk. For her part, Crawford feels like the trust between her and the teachers has been broken. With a transgender nephew and a gay daughter, Crawford claims that she is not anti-LGBTQ and that, after reporting the survey to her son’s principal, there has been no reply.

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Maryland School Implements New Mask Mandate

An elementary school in Maryland has reinstated mandatory mask requirements, as Joe Biden appeared in front of the press wearing a face covering Tuesday.

Rosemary Hills Elementary School in Silver Spring, a wealthy DC suburb, has brought back the mask mandate for students and staff, and added that the coverings should be N95 masks.

The school sent out a letter informing parents they have taken the decision after just THREE students tested positive for COVID.

“Additional KN95 masks have been distributed and students and staff in identified classes or activities will be required to mask while in school for the next 10 days, except while eating or drinking. Masks will become options again following the 10-day period,” the letter states.

We’ve heard that one before.

“At-home rapid test kids will be sent home and made available for students,” Principal Irwin Kennedy further notes, adding that CDC guidance decrees that testing should be done “5 days after an exposure (starting day 6)” or at such time as symptoms occur.

“We will continue to reinforce good hand washing and follow cleaning and disinfection procedures,” the letter further states.

The move comes as Joe Biden donned a face diaper as he arrived at a White House gathering, before removing it altogether.

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That School Is Still Treading on Jaiden Rodriguez’s Free Speech Rights

The case of 12-year-old Jaiden Rodriguez is not quite closed. While the Vanguard School’s board of directors has declared that he may sport a “don’t tread on me” patch on his backpack, a closer look at the school district’s policies suggests that administrators are still inclined to tread all over Rodriguez’s free speech rights.

That’s according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a First Amendment advocacy organization. FIRE spoke with Jaiden’s mother, who said that contrary to the board’s public statement, a district official—Mike Claudio, assistant superintendent of Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs, Colorado—told her that her son would only be allowed to display the Gadsden flag patch as long as no one else complained about it.

Moreover, Rodriguez is still prohibited from displaying a secondary patch that references the Firearms Policy Coalition and expresses support for the Second Amendment. The justification for this restriction is the district’s categorical ban on content having to do with alcohol, drugs, tobacco, and weapons.

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NYC migrants living in temporary shelters don’t need vaccinations to initially enroll in public school

Migrants living in temporary shelters in New York City don’t need vaccinations to initially enroll in the city’s public school system.

Officials said during a press conference on Wednesday that migrants living in temporary shelters have a certain timeframe that the vaccinations need to be obtained by once they are in school, according to FOX 5.

NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks said that since July 2022, around 19,000 students living in temporary housing have enrolled in city schools.

Banks said that “We have room for the students,” referring to the migrant children who arrived in the city.

Typically, all students aged 2 months to 18 years old who will attend public school, child care, or private school must be vaccinated  for a list of diseases before attending, according to the New York City Department of Education. There are some situations where a child can attend school if they have received the first dose of a school-required vaccine which requires multiple doses.

According to the city’s department of education, religious exemptions for mandated vaccines are no longer allowed.

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School defends hiring of drag queen arrested on child porn charges

Western Heights Public School District in Oklahoma is defending its decision to hire a drag queen who was arrested on child porn charges, the Daily Caller has learned.

Dr. Shane Brent Murnan, 52, was hired as an elementary school principal at John Glenn Elementary, the Substack V1sut first reported. In a Facebook post, Murnan celebrated a “new district and new respect,” according to the report. Murnan’s personal Facebook page appears to have since been deleted.

Murnan had his personal devices confiscated by police in 2001 on suspicion of possession of child pornography, according to V1sut. Then a fifth-grade teacher at Will Rogers Elementary School in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Murnan was arrested two weeks after the confiscation. Appeals Court Associate Judge Dave Allen said that it was “clear from a review of the pictures that they do represent child pornography,” The Oklahoman reported at the time.

Payne County District Judge Donald L. Worthington dismissed the charge against Murnan in August 2002, after Murnan’s attorneys said that he obtained the pictures by accident, and maintained that the age of the individuals in the photographs could not be proven, The Oklahoman reported. At the time, Murnan did lose his teaching job. Murnan’s record was expunged and the charges were dismissed after completing probation for a drug charge in October 2003, according to the Oklahoma State Courts Network.

Murnan became a school teacher at a rural Oklahoma school district in 2007, moving to an elementary school position at Oklahoma City Public Schools in 2016. Murnan worked as an assistant vice principal from 2020-2022 before his hiring as a principal.

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Children made to write apology letters in school to Aboriginal Australians ‘for taking their land’

Children as young as 10 are being made to write letters in school apologising to Indigenous Australians for ‘taking their land’, pictures reveal. 

The images taken by a parent were sent to One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson, who posted them online.

The letters, written by primary school children, were put together on pieces of paper shaped in the form of a megaphone with words referencing the nation’s colonial past.

‘We are sorry for everything that we have done,’ one letter reads. 

Another said: ‘We are sorry to Aboriginals. We took your land and we have now we feel sad of what we have done.’

‘Aboriginal people should have many more rights and should be treated nicely they should be also be a aboriginal voice to parliament [sic]’. 

Senator Hanson said teachers should ‘hang their heads in shame’ for psychologically burdening children with historical guilt.

‘Under no circumstances should innocent children bear the guilt of historical events, especially events that occurred long before they were even conceived. ‘This is not education; it’s emotional manipulation,’ she argued.

‘What legacy are we leaving for future generations if we instil in them a sense of guilt and shame for things they had no part in?

‘Rather than moving toward unity and social harmony, we are planting seeds for further discord and division.’

It comes after a mother on Thursday revealed how her daughter was told by teachers at her school to ‘go home and influence your parents to vote Yes’ for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

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Parent Slams California School For Holding ‘No Whites Allowed’ Kids Playdate

A parent at a California elementary school has slammed officials for sanctioning a playdate for kids that essentially segregated them by race, and excluded white children.

A flyer for the event at Anthony Chabot Elementary School in Oakland, CA notes that it is “for black, brown and API families.”

“If your family identifies as Black, Brown, or API or are [sic] a parent/caregiver of a Black, Brown, or API student. Come hang out while we get a chance to know each other and build our community as we kick off this schoolyear [sic],” reads the invite to the event.

Ironically it was hosted by the school ‘equity & inclusion committee’.

Taking to social media, the parent noted “I dunno about others, but I’m genuinely upset about what ultimately boils down to a “No whites allowed” playdate.”

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‘Teacher of the month’ who likes to ‘build relationships’ with pupils charged in student sex assault case

A Tennessee high school teacher who’d been awarded “teacher of the month” has been charged with statutory rape after allegedly having sex with one of her students. 

Casey McGrath, a 28-year-old geometry teacher at Chattanooga Central High School, was suspended without pay in March after a months-long investigation into alleged “inappropriate physical contact with a student” WTVC reported.

She was indicted on Aug. 14 and charged with “unlawfully and knowingly engag[ing] in sexual penetration with a person of at least 13 years of age, but less than 18,” according to court documents obtained by Fox News.

The indictment noted that she is “at least 10 years older than the victim.”

McGrath was arrested on Aug. 18 and is out on release after posting a $10,000 bond. She is scheduled to be arraigned in Hamilton County Criminal Court on Sept. 6.

McGrath — who had also taught at nearby East Ridge Middle School, according to school records. She had recently been nominated by Central High School students as “teacher of the month,” according to an online article in the school’s newspaper that has since been taken down.

The teacher told a student reporter that her favorite part of the  day was “getting to interact with students and build relationships with them” — despite challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Feds Demand Action on School Sexual Misconduct. Will California Heed the Call?

Across the nation, schools have repeatedly hidden instances of teacher misconduct that, in some cases, allow educators to inflict the same behaviors on more students. 

San Francisco’s public school district has entered into resignation agreements with 19 employees accused of sexual misconduct since 2017, The Standard previously revealed. One of those teachers had left another Bay Area school under separate sexual misconduct allegations 20 years prior, unbeknown to administrators. 

To prevent schools from unwittingly hiring teachers credibly accused of sexual misconduct, federal education officials want states to tighten regulations. Though criminal background checks are required for most school staff across the nation, the U.S. Education Department warned it creates a false sense of security. In a July 2022 report, the department called on states to enact more protections. 

California is one of many states that does not explicitly prohibit the suppression of information about employee misconduct. And, nearly one year after the federal report, state leaders have made little progress in assessing what needs to be done. Gaps also remain when it comes to tracking non-credentialed school staff accused of misconduct, and in tracking records of staff from out of state.

In response to questions regarding potential new practices, the California Department of Education said, it “has, by statute and regulations, a limited role in local matters with public schools. Any change to this oversight would require legislative action.”

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How the Victorian Education Department’s historical child sexual abuse scandal was hidden for decades

On June 27, 2019, the viewing areas of Melbourne’s County Court were a hive of nervous energy as Justice Gabriele Cannon arrived to deliver a sentence that would publicly account for the private sorrows of dozens of people in the room.

Slumped beside his defence counsel, a 78-year-old former primary school teacher who’d once sneered at his victims that they’d never be believed was now a diminished and defeated figure.

But it was not just the reputation of Vincent Henry Reynolds on trial that day.

Warning: This story contains details of child sexual abuse

The story presented of Reynolds’s career would soon be understood as a microcosm of the unravelling crisis of historical sexual abuse in the Victorian education system. It would reveal in granular detail the methods by which the Victorian Education Department had covered up the sexual abuse of children — methods that lawyers for survivors say have been identified in dozens of other cases. 

The catchwords for Cannon’s sentencing remarks were succinct and compelling: “historical sexual offending”; “42 charges”; “38 child complainants”; “period of offending about 31 years”; “abuse of power”; “gross breach of trust”; “brazen and prolonged offending”; “systemic failures in duty of care”.

Yet as disturbing as the raw numbers were, they sold short the devastation wrought by Reynolds’s decades of rampant abuse of children placed in his care at government-run schools, reflecting only the reported cases of those who’d both survived their ordeals and mustered the strength to endure the justice system’s lengthy and often dispiriting delays.

One after the other, survivors stepped forward to read victim impact statements to the court.

“The Education Department knew he was a sick child abuser, knew that he preyed on kids, but they turned him loose on me and my classmates, and on lots of other kids in country Victoria,” one of them would later say.

Survivors who’d spent decades negotiating their traumas alone now gathered as a collective, participating in the unfortunately rare experience of personally witnessing the comeuppance of their abuser.

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