Tag: public schools

Kansas Public School Pays $95K to Teacher Suspended For ‘Misgendering’ Trans Student

A Kansas public school system has agreed to pay a $95,000 settlement to a teacher who was suspended for “misgendering” a transgender student by using their birth name.

Fort Riley Middle School officials also forced the teacher, Pamela Ricard, to conceal the student’s social transition from their parents against her will.

Ricard had filed a lawsuit challenging the school district policy that forced her to use the student’s “preferred name” to address them in class while using their legal name when speaking to parents.

In the lawsuit, Ricard was represented by Alliance Defending Freedom and Kriegshauser Ney Law Group, who said in a statement that the policy “violated her conscience.”

“No school district should ever force teachers to willfully deceive parents or engage in any speech that violates their deeply held religious beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. “We’re pleased to settle this case favorably on behalf of Pam, and we hope that it will encourage school districts across the country to support the constitutionally protected freedom of teachers to teach and communicate honestly with both children and parents.”

According to the statement, in May, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas allowed Ricard’s lawsuit to proceed. The court ruled that since she was likely to win the lawsuit on her her First Amendment free exercise of religion claim, a motion to halt enforcement of the parental communication portion of the district policy was granted.

“This case provides straightforward lessons for Kansas school boards: Schools shouldn’t lie to parents and teachers don’t forfeit their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door,” said Joshua Ney, partner at Kriegshauser Ney Law Group, in a statement.

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CA school district orders health textbook touting 10 sexual orientations — such as androsexual, polysexual, and gynesexual — and 8 gender identities

A California school district has ordered a health textbook for high schoolers that claims there are 10 sexual orientations and eight gender identities, Fox News reported.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District ordered the “Comprehensive Health Skills for High School” textbook, which claims there are 10 sexual orientations — including androsexual, polysexual, skoliosexual, demisexual, and gynesexual, the cable network said.

In addition, the textbook also says there are eight gender identities — including androgynous, bigender, gender-nonconforming, gender questioning, and nonbinary, Fox News added.

When the cable network reached out to the Newport-Mesa for comment, officials replied that “we follow the state-adopted standards for health education, which includes sexual health. We use a state-approved health curriculum with select modules, taught by credentialed teachers.”

Fox News said the district added that “parents can opt out their child from participating in comprehensive sex education. Parents also have the ability to review all curriculum taught in our schools so that they can be well-informed and make the best decisions for their child. We understand that there are varying viewpoints and beliefs and we follow California State Standards for curriculum, while also supporting parent choice.”

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Fort Worth Parents Charged Over $1,200 To See Curriculum Book Lists

Two Fort Worth, Texas, moms were charged more than $1,200 to see the public school district’s K-12 curriculum book lists, and now one mom has filed a complaint.

On August 8, Kristina Denapolis, whose daughter is in 8th grade, filed a public records request with the Fort Worth Independent School District for copies of the book lists for kindergarten through 12th grade.

She was told the request would cost an eye-popping $1,267.50 to fill.

Another Fort Worth mom, Jenny Crossland, was trying to decide where to send her daughter to kindergarten and filed the same public records request for K-12 book lists. She was given the same answer — the request would cost $1,267.50 and take 84.5 hours of labor.

On Thursday, Denapolis, who is an attorney, filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General’s office, asking that it investigate the charge, which she said is “not reasonable,” and order the district to reduce it.

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DC Mayor Says No Virtual Learning, Giving Unvaccinated Black Teens Zero Alternative Options 

The District of Columbia does not appear to have a contingency plan for unvaccinated students, who are banned from attending schools in person this fall after the first twenty days, according to comments made by Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser Thursday. 

During a press conference, Bowser, a Democrat, admitted there are no alternative options, including virtual learning, for students who cannot attend school due to the District’s vaccine mandate, meaning unvaccinated children will effectively be left without an education.  

Over 40% of blacks ages 12-17 are not vaccinated, according to city data. 

The Daily Signal asked Bowser what the plan was for unvaccinated students. Washington, D.C. public schools start Monday.  

Bowser responded “They can go to school on Monday. But they need to get their vaccinations… and their families will be alerted as to the dates.” 

Students get 20 days to provide their vaccination certificate. The Office of the State Superintendent of Education for D.C. announced that “all students must have up-to-date immunization certification on file with the school within the first 20 school days or they will not be allowed to attend school or school activities until the immunization certification is secured by the school.” 

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‘Dark day for students’: School board passes curriculum calling girls a ‘person with a vulva’

“This is a dark day for Wisconsin students, who will be taught a curriculum that reduces them down to their body parts,” Alexandra Schweitzer, president of No Left Turn In Education – Wisconsin, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “No teacher should refer to their female students as ‘students who will menstruate’ or to their male students as ‘penis owners.’ This is a wholly inappropriate use of classroom time that ought to be spent on educational fundamentals.”

Parents were sent a letter from the school district detailing the curriculum on Aug. 3. The district community had until Aug. 17 to provide feedback on the curriculum to the school board through a Google form.

The sixth grade lesson plan tells teachers to call women “a person with a vulva.” The students are taught how their family and peers may influence their “attitude” towards gender identity and gender expression.

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Then The Technocrats Came For The Children…

School districts around the world are racing to implement Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs in the name of improving their students’ social and emotional skills. In fact, according to the global purveyor of SEL standards, 27 states so far have adopted K-12 SEL competencies, and all 50 states have adopted SEL competencies for pre-K students. But where is this massive push for SEL coming from, and what are the motives behind it?

The answer to this question is becoming clear: The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is a primary force behind the SEL movement worldwide. A major way UNESCO advocates for SEL is through UNESCO’S Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development. The Gandhi Institute produces an online publication called The Blue Dot, which features articles from SEL experts and others around the globe that highlight “the relationship between education, peace, sustainable development and global citizenship.” Invoking Gandhi’s name in the title of this United Nations entity is meant to pull at the heartstrings of anyone who hears it. But should our heartstrings be pulled?

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Fairfax County Schools Knew of Counselor’s Multiple Pedo Arrests, Failed to Act for 2 Years, Records Show

Fairfax County Public Schools were notified by police that middle school counselor Darren Thornton had been arrested not once, but twice on crimes of pedophilia and still failed to fire the convicted sex offender, granting him access to children for nearly two years after his initial arrest. In a public statement made this week, the left-wing school district pled ignorance of Thornton’s criminal history, but law enforcement has confirmed that school officials were notified of his arrests when they happened.

As National File reported yesterday, Darren Thornton, a now-former counselor at Fairfax County’s Glasgow Middle School, was arrested shortly after he was hired in November of 2020 and charged with soliciting a child for sex. Thornton was convicted of the felony pedophilia charge in March of this year and forced to register as a sex offender. He was also handed a 5-year suspended prison sentence.

Shortly after his conviction, Thornton was arrested once more, on June 13th, in a pervert round-up that was widely reported by local media.

According to the Chesterfield County Police Department, which arrested Thornton both in 2020 and 2022, Fairfax County Public Schools were promptly notified of both of his arrests, the first of which took place just weeks after he was hired by the school district.

Additionally, public records pertaining to Thornton back up the police’s assertion and prove that Fairfax County was indeed notified of his pedophilia and criminality, yet apparently failed to act.

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White Teachers Will Be Fired First if Minneapolis School District Downsizes

Under a new contract between the Minneapolis School District and the local teachers union, it is a requirement that white teachers will be fired first in the event of any staff downsizing.

“Starting with the Spring 2023 Budget Tie-Out Cycle, if excessing a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers in the site, the District shall excess the next least senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population,” the agreement, which was originally obtained by Alpha News, says. Minority teachers “may be exempted from district-wide layoff[s] outside seniority order,” and will also be given priority during reinstatement. In addition, teachers at 15 “racially isolated schools…with the greatest concentration of poverty” will be exempt from any downsizing that occurs in the future.

Both parties justify the racially discriminatory measure by pointing to alleged racial hiring inequities in the past. “Past discrimination by the District disproportionately impacted the hiring of underrepresented teachers in the District, as compared to the relevant labor market and the community, and resulted in a lack of diversity of teachers,” the agreement adds.

Despite backlash, the teachers union is sticking by the plan and hopes it can become a national model. “It can be a national model, and schools in other states are looking to emulate what we did,” Edward Barlow, who sits on the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers executive board, told the Star Tribune. “Even though it doesn’t do everything that we wanted it to do, it’s still a huge move forward for the retention of teachers of color.”

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‘Orwellian’: School District Encourages Entire Town To Report Violations Of ‘Anti-Racism’ Policy

A Rhode Island school district is encouraging its community to report anyone who violates the district’s anti-racism policy.

The “Anti-racism, Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy” at South Kingstown school district in Rhode Island says anyone in the educational community is “personally responsible” and must “immediately report” different kinds of racism including, “cyber racism,” “interpersonal racism” and “institutional racism,” according to the district policy. The policy states that “any member of South Kingstown is encouraged to report incidents or allegations of incidents” that break anti-racism policy guidelines.

The school district administers “No Contact Orders,” prohibiting any verbal and physical contact between the alleged offender and victim, once a report is filed, the policy states. The policy aims to create a district that is “actively anti-racist and anti-discriminatory.”

“The South Kingstown School District Anti-Racism policy creates a paranoid, stasi-style online reporting system for any member of the Town of South Kingstown to report not only incidents of racism, but also cyber racism and interpersonal racism as defined by the district,” Nicole Solas, South Kingstown resident and Independent Women’s Forum senior fellow, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Violations of the policy include racism, defined as “systemic oppression of a racial group,” and cyber racism, which is racism on websites and blogs, as well as text messages, emails, images and videos, the policy stated. Interpersonal racism, defined as pre-judgment or bias in “privately held beliefs, conscious and unconscious and external behaviors and actions towards others,” and institutional racism, which is “inequitable outcomes for students who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in institutions,” are both included in the policy.

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DC Schools Will Expel Students Who Choose Not to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine

Schools in Washington, D.C. are requiring all students aged 12 and older to get the COVID-19 vaccine before returning to the classroom this fall. Students who don’t get it won’t be allowed in the classroom and could face expulsion (via Council of the District of Columbia):

No student shall be admitted by a school unless the school has certification of COVID-19 immunization for that student or the student is exempted.

Students can get exemptions if a parent or guardian provides written evidence receiving a vaccine would violate their religious beliefs or if a physician certifies in writing it is unsafe for the student to get the shot.

The mandate applies not only to public schools in the district but also public charter schools and private schools. Students who don’t get the vaccine could be sent out of school after a period of time:

A school shall permit a student to attend for not more than 20 school days while the school does not have certification of immunization for that student. If immunization requires a series of treatments that cannot be completed within the 20 school days, the student shall be permitted to attend school while the treatments are continuing if, within the 20 school days, the school receives written notification from whomever is administering it that the immunization is in progress.

Innovate Schools researched the effects COVID lockdowns and online learning have had on K-12 students in California. The data are bleak. Since schools shut down in 2020, young people have been hugely stunted in their educational, social, and emotional development.

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