Tag: public schools

Florida parents sue after school clandestinely orchestrated daughter’s gender transition

The parents of a Florida teenager have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit after their daughter’s school directed their child to pursue a gender transition without notifying them.

January and Jeffrey Littlejohn of Tallahassee, Florida, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida last month, seeking to “vindicate their fundamental rights to direct the upbringing of their children” after Deerlake Middle School, where their 13-year-old daughter was enrolled, failed to notify them that their daughter had entered a school-sanctioned gender transition plan.

The lawsuit, which names the school superintendent, the assistant superintendent, and the Leon County School Board as defendants, says the Littlejohns’ daughter informed them during the COVID-19 lockdown in spring 2020 that “she was confused about her gender and believed she might be non-binary.”

The Littlejohns’ daughter, who is referred to as A.G. in court filings, “asked her parents to permit her to change her name to ‘J.’ and to use ‘they/them’ pronouns” as the 2020-2021 school year approached, the lawsuit says.

Her parents declined but told her she could use the “J” name in school as a nickname.

“We didn’t think it was in the best interests of our child,” January Littlejohn told the Washington Examiner in an interview. But, she went on, “we didn’t feel like we would stop her friends from calling her a different name.”

The lawsuit says the Littlejohns informed their daughter’s math teacher, Rima Kelly, about the teenager’s gender dysphoria and continued treatment with a mental health counselor on Aug. 27, 2020.

Kelly offered to inform the school about their daughter’s desires to identify as nonbinary, which the parents declined. The teacher is not a named defendant in the case.

A couple of weeks later, on Sept. 14, while she was getting into the car, the Littlejohns’ daughter mentioned that the school had asked her which bathroom she wanted to use, which the lawsuit says she thought was “funny.”

January Littlejohn told the Washington Examiner that was the first time she became aware that the school was meeting with her daughter and assisting the teenager in embracing a different gender identity in school settings. The school did not facilitate any transition-related medical procedures.

The school claimed nondiscrimination law barred them from informing the parents about the meeting with their daughter, which occurred on Sept. 8, 2020, unless the child authorized them to be there.

Keep reading

Maryland Public School Teacher Asked 14-Year-Olds to Take ‘White Privilege Test’

An English teacher in Montgomery County Public Schools — the largest school district in Maryland — told students to take a “white privilege test” before reading a book that addresses themes of racism and police brutality.

Ninth-grade English students at Sherwood High School were given pre-reading questions for the book “All American Boys” on Monday, Nov. 8, according to a file reviewed by the Daily Caller. The questions linked directly to a Vox article titled “what it means to be anti-racist” and a test called the “white privilege test.” The Vox article promoted the work of “anti-racist” scholar and author Ibram X. Kendi.

The “white privilege test” was adapted by “research on white privilege” from anti-racist activist Peggy McIntosh, according to the test. Students were told to answer “yes or no” to 25 statements.

Statements of white privilege include, “I can go shopping alone and be sure that I won’t be followed or harassed,” “In the history I have studied, my ancestors are given a lot of attention and credit,” and “I never feel out of place, outnumbered, unheard, feared, or hated in my clubs and activities. Instead, I feel tied in and welcomed,” among others.

Keep reading

Scottsdale Unified Assures Parents Of Privacy In Aftermath Of Secret Dossier Discovery, Parents Call For Greenburg Resignation

The Scottsdale Unified School District’s administration is scrambling to do damage control after a group of mothers discovered Governing Board President Jann-Michael Greenburg had access to a Google Drive full of personal information, documents, and photos of about 47 people, including children.

An email sent out Wednesday evening by the SUSD’s Communications Office sought to assure families that their personal and educational data is safe. However, the district also solely blamed the discovered digital dossier* site on Mark Greenburg, the father of Jann-Michael Greenburg.

The damage control appears to be too little too late for many parents in the Scottsdale Unified School District, including Amy Carney, a mother of six, who is among those calling for Greenburg to step down.

“I am calling for the immediate resignation of our board president Jann-Michael Greenburg. We cannot allow anyone in a leadership position to secretly compile personal documents and information on moms and dads who have dared speak out publicly or on social media about their grievances with the district,’ said Carney, who is running for a seat on the Scottsdale Governing Board in November 2022.

Even though Mark Greenburg is listed as the Google Drive owner, records from an Aug. 17 special SUSD board meeting show Jann-Michael admitted sharing a computer with Mark. With Mark and Jann-Michael sharing a computer and a home, there is no way to know which of them has been uploading files (now known as the “G Files”) to the drive, according to concerned parents.

Keep reading

White Students Not Allowed at Pennsylvania School District’s Drone Camp

A middle school in Pennsylvania is receiving pushback from some parents for hosting a drone-flying camp over the weekend that was not open to white students.

During morning announcements at Upper Merion Area Middle School on November 1, a school staff member said she had “an exciting announcement,” but asked everyone to first watch a short video about drones. The video included footage of students flying drones, and snippets of TV news reports where anchors noted that “drones are in high demand,” and “if you want to go into drones, you’re going to need those (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) skills.”

After the video, the staff member announced a drone flight camp at the middle school on Saturday, according to a recording of the announcement a parent posted on Facebook. The camp was free, but there were only 24 seats available, the staff member announced. Seats would be filled on a first-come, first-served basis, she said.

But there was another catch.

“Here’s the thing, it is a black-student-union-sponsored event,” the staff member said, adding that “you must be black, African American, a person of color in order to participate.”

Keep reading

Furious mother who exposed ‘pedophilia,’ pornography in high school library books now banned from high school library

The Virginia mother who made headlines for exposing what she said is pedophilia and pornography in her son’s high school library books is reportedly banned from entering the school’s library.

The mother, Stacy Langton, castigated the Fairfax County Public Schools in September for permitting what she said amounted to explicit pornographic and pedophilic materials in the school’s library, including graphic imagery and dialogue depicting sex between adult men and teenagers.

Board members, however, cut off Langton during her speech before her time expired, and she was unable to finish her remarks demanding answers and accountability for the presence of such materials. In remarks, board members ironically shamed Langton for reading passages of the books in the presence of children.

Keep reading

Maryland school system tells students ‘systemic racism’ is a pandemic in ‘psychoeducational lessons’

The most populous county in Maryland has implemented “psychoeducational lessons” that tell students there is a “dual pandemic” involving COVID-19 and “systemic racism,” according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) promoted materials like “Antiracist Baby” by Ibram X. Kendi in a PowerPoint obtained by Judicial Watch. The PowerPoint links to an audio reading of the book, which says “Babies are taught to be racist or antiracist, there’s no neutrality.”

Teacher notes in the PowerPoint said the book “is the perfect gift for readers of all ages dedicated to forming a just society,” even babies and toddlers.

Fox News first reported on the Judicial Watch documents Thursday.

“This material details how extremist race politics and CRT are being used to target children for political ends,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement on the documents, Fox News reported. “Politics should immediately be removed from the curriculum of Montgomery County Schools. These CRT-laden teachings have no place in any American classroom.”

Critical Race Theory (CRT) holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.

Keep reading

Indiana school administrator: You’d better believe we teach CRT — and lie to parents about it

Perhaps the most useful 96 seconds in the post-Glenn Youngkin victory period you’ll spend, but let’s set the context up first. Before, during, and after Election Night, Democrats and the media insisted Republicans and Youngkin created a “dog whistle” campaign about critical race theory and education.  Terry McAuliffe insisted on arguing simultaneously that Virginia schools didn’t teach CRT, and that parents who opposed the teaching of CRT were probably racists.

This argument leached into practically every media outlet’s news coverage on Tuesday night as an explainer for McAuliffe’s loss and the red wave in Virginia. MRC/Newsbusters has a sampling that’s MSNBC-heavy, but the CRT-doesn’t-exist argument got heavy rotation on every network except (presumably) Fox. The Washington Free Beacon has a video montage that captures the moment as well (via Power Line).

The New York Times has a follow-up today in the Republicans Pounce!® genre, which is a bit more subtle about the actual status of CRT influence on education:

Seizing on education as a newly potent wedge issue, Republicans have moved to galvanize crucial groups of voters around what the party calls “parental rights” issues in public schools, a hodgepodge of conservative causes ranging from eradicating mask mandates to demanding changes to the way children are taught about racism.

Yet it is the free-floating sense of rage from parents, many of whom felt abandoned by the government during the worst months of the pandemic, that arose from the off-year elections as one of the most powerful drivers for Republican candidates.

Across the country, Democrats lost significant ground in crucial suburban and exurban areas — the kinds of communities that are sought out for their well-funded public schools — that helped give the party control of Congress and the White House. In Virginia, where Republicans made schools central to their pitch, education rocketed to the top of voter concerns in the final weeks of the race, narrowly edging out the economy.

The message worked on two frequencies. Pushing a mantra of greater parental control, Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, stoked the resentment and fear of some white voters, who were alarmed by efforts to teach a more critical history of racism in America. He attacked critical race theory, a graduate school framework that has become a loose shorthand for a contentious debate on how to address race. And he released an ad that was a throwback to the days of banning books, highlighting objections by a white mother and her high-school-age son to “Beloved,” the canonical novel about slavery by the Black Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.

But at the same time, Mr. Youngkin and other Republicans tapped into broader dissatisfaction among moderate voters about teachers’ unions, unresponsive school boards, quarantine policies and the instruction parents saw firsthand during months of remote learning. In his stump speeches, Mr. Youngkin promised to never again close Virginia schools.

Note well that the NYT doesn’t float Youngkin’s argument as a lie or a falsehood. Ross Douthat’s column yesterday may be the reason for that, to which we’ll get in a moment. First, though, let’s hear from an actual school administrator, who explains that there is a campaign to lie about school curricula to parents — only it’s not coming from CRT critics. Tony Kinnett works as a school administrator in Indiana as well as conservative activist and commentator on education, and he translates how CRT gets baked into academic curricula as “anti-racism”.

Keep reading

When mob rule dictates that we must all cheer a male homecoming queen, it’s clear that society is close to collapse

The unchallenged compliance afforded by many in endorsing previously unthinkable scenarios – like teenage boys being crowned homecoming queens – should set the alarm bells ringing as to where our civilization is headed.

Zachary Willmore of Rock Bridge High School in Columbia, Missouri hit the headlines last week by becoming the first male student to be crowed homecoming queen during a homecoming game.

In a video shared widely on Twitter, the crowd appears to cheer wildly as the young gentleman receives his tiara while dressed in a “beautiful gold gown and homecoming sash” on the busy football field.

While it’s possible the volume of the cheering is from genuine exultation, we might assume that a healthy percentage is borne from a ‘fearful compliance’. While it is all very well that a man should put on a dress and reverse the notion of a ‘homecoming queen’ (as a badge of progressivism) one might still ask, in the most hidden corners of the consciousness, to what end?

While this is not written in any way as an attack on Mr. Willmore, there is a greater cultural phenomenon at work of which he is undoubtedly taking advantage. You can make the case that it is nothing more than a superficial act of kindness to give a young man this bizarre accolade, without any wider ramifications, but we all know that isn’t true.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Is it fair to the female homecoming queen hopefuls? Is it fair to the football team whose game is now overshadowed by social justice politics? Is it fair to the crowd, who find themselves in a public situation of forced moral conformity (obedience)? There are still many people who don’t see gender norms as a disposable nuisance, who realise their essentiality.

These purposeless showboating acts often get shoehorned unexpectedly into public events of which they play no real part. They are manufactured detraction from an actual occasion (in Willmore’s case, a football game) – a chance for the needy to garner attention.

I am recalled once more of the wedding I attended where the bride’s lesbian sister – a bridesmaid – spent the greater part of her speech not talking about the bride, but about her own struggles to be accepted as gay, culminating in crying about herself.

Despite the narcissism, the LGBTQ+ context forces a ‘standing ovation’ of applause, as the crowd senses the Pavlovian trigger-sentiment for ‘disadvantaged heroism’. Everyone nervously clapping as long and hard as they can, eyes darting from the corner of faces – frozen in false smiles – trying to detect any lack of enthusiasm from anyone else. Inwardly thinking: Am I going mad?

Keep reading