Why ask “Why do you want to serve on the school board?”

It’s a legitimate question! Voters should know why the candidate wants to serve on the school board. The candidate should have a clear understanding of their motivations and a vision for their schools.

Why ask “Do you believe parents should have the right to review any curriculum* to be used before it is presented in the classrooms? (including teachers manuals)

Parents have a right to know what is being taught in the classroom, and how information is being presented. The full picture cannot be understood without looking at the full curriculum, including digital materials provided by the curriculum publisher and the teacher’s manual. We have seen “spin” and bias in how the text materials are reviewed in lesson preparation and follow-up. 

         There is no reason to keep any of these materials from parents. Let’s have full transparency.

Why ask “Will you support a policy to mandate a 30 day public review period on all curriculum purchases?” (including teachers manuals)

Unfortunately, school directors have not historically had the time or interest to review their administrator’s curriculum requests in depth before they vote to approve them. Why not allow the public a 30 day opportunity to review these materials and provide feedback to the board before they vote on it? It’s a “win-win” situation. The public has a chance to see the materials, providing transparency and respect for parental involvement, and the board is provided with additional input on the materials before they vote.

         It is a bad situation when parents find out there is objectionable materials in the curriculum after the board approves and purchases these expensive materials. This is fully avoidable with the proper public vetting of curricula. A policy of a 30-day review period is reasonable to expect from the board.

Why ask “Will you promise not to vote for contracts with third party vendors that do not allow public/board access to staff training materials (many of which are filled with CRT and gender propaganda)?”

Parents across Pennsylvania have asked to see materials provided by third-party contractors and consultants and have been denied on the bogus reason that these materials are “proprietary.” This is an unacceptable reason to deny parents access.

         The purpose of labeling content “proprietary” is to keep another party from copying and using the information for commercial use. Parents aren’t interested in using this information for personal gain! (If vendors really believed they are, I’m sure parents would be happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement stating the fact.) Parents simply want to see how teachers and staff are being “trained” to implement curricula and for so-called “anti-bias” trainings, which often are CRT indoctrination projects mislabeled as “trainings.”

         The obvious solution to this problem is for school boards NOT to agree to any vendor contracts that limit the public’s access to this information. This language must be written in the contracts. School board solicitors can facilitate this adjustment to such contracts.

Why ask “Will you advocate for parental notification and “opt-ins” for all surveys administered during school, both written and online, and notify parents that they have the right to review such surveys before they grant permission to administer them to their children?”

Students are being asked to complete all kinds of surveys in school today. Some are on paper; others are online. Parents have no idea what is being asked of their children.

         School districts sometimes notify parents that they have the right to “opt-out” of surveys in advance. There are several problems with this approach:

·       Busy parents tend to trust schools that these surveys are beneficial and/or necessary for the children

·       Parents are not informed of the exact content of these surveys

·       Districts spin the purpose and benefit of these surveys, whereas if parents knew specifically what data was being collected on their children, they might feel differently

·       “Opt-out” requires less attention from parents than “opt-in,” and is less likely to reflect the parents’ wishes, had they been better informed

·       The onus to justify the collection of this student data should be on the district. The burden should not be on the parent to continuously be “watching over the shoulders” of school administrators.

·       Districts often make seeing these surveys inconvenient for parents. These surveys should be made available electronically without parents having to jump through hoops.

Why ask “Do you believe America is systemically racist, and that children should be taught that white children have privilege and black children are oppressed?”

We ask this for a simple reason:  School staff is being indoctrinated with the worldview that western culture is systemically racist. This is different from the fact that racism exists or has existed in the past. It is a view that all our systems are racist at their foundation: The rule of law, the Constitution, meritocracy (the idea that people should be hired based on merit), hard work, being on time, the scientific method, traditional peer-review, medical science, biology, all our systems are rooted in racism and must be rejected for a subjected worldview of “oppressed” peoples.

         If you are a member of a perceived “oppressor” class, your opinion is not valid.

         This is the worldview being pushed in our schools, and we want to know if school board candidates will support it or not.

         We want to know if school board candidates believe America is systemically racist, versus understanding that racism exists and that racism has occurred in the past. 

Why ask “Do you believe that fiction books with detailed, graphic depictions of sex acts should be in our school libraries?”

Parents are finding books in their school libraries that are pervasively vulgar and educationally unsuitable. Many of these books can be found on the web sites Booklooks.org and Ratedbooks.org.

         Books in school libraries should be considered suitable and recommended by the school district. Parents have a right to believe that books in their school libraries will provide academic and educational enrichment to their children, without having to worry that they have to oversee every possible book their child checks out.

         This is not a “free speech” issue, as the Woke Left has suggested. This is a matter of whether or not school administrators are being responsible in recommending educationally suitable academically enriching books for children.

         Some of these books may be harmful for some children. No one knows exactly which children may be harmed, how to identify them in advance, or pre-screen any harm that could be done.

         It is a better practice to avoid pervasively vulgar and educationally unsuitable materials than to risk harming children.

Why ask: “Do you believe elementary children should be taught that gender is ‘fluid,’ doctors ‘guess at the baby’s sex’ at birth, and that they (children) can choose their pronouns?”

We asked this question because a parent reported a lesson given to their first grade child (from the Epic app on the student’s district-provided electronic device) stating this controversial topic as fact. Most parents would not agree that this material should be presented to young children. We want school boards that will exercise common-sense judgement over curriculum so that children are not given inappropriate lessons at any ages.

         School boards have the right and duty to make these judgements on parents’ and taxpayers’ behalf.

Why ask: “Should the public be allowed to speak at public board committee meetings?”

Before the COVID shutdowns, school boards conducted their public meetings with almost no public participation. During the shutdowns and masking era, parents starting attending meetings and speaking out. This was new and unsettling to many “old guard” school board directors who seemed to have difficulty in handling these situations. 

         Many efforts were made to shut these parents down. Even the Attorney General of the United States tried to intimidate parents by stating they were “domestic terrorists” simply for speaking publicly.

         It is a first principle of human rights that citizens be able to address their elected officials in a public forum. Elected officials do not have the right to regulate the speech of their constituents.

         It is reasonable to establish district policies in advance so the rules are mutually understood. It is not acceptable to apply ad hoc rules “on the fly” when school directors feel uncomfortable or simply want to deny the public’s ability to speak.

Why ask: “Are you aware that social-emotional learning (SEL) is shifting education away from academic achievement and more towards shaping children’s attitudes, values and beliefs?” 

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is marketed as “the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.” (CASEL.org)

         SEL programs were mandated and funded through federal ESSR grants. Billions of dollars are being allocated to third-party vendors (by school boards) for SEL curriculum programs to satisfy this requirement.

         However, there are ulterior motives behind SEL, as parents and teachers have witnessed through the implementation of the programs.

         SEL programs and assessments are being administered through a “woke” lens of critical race and gender theory, promoting racial division and the idea that gender is fluid and is a social construct rather than biological reality. They are being used to assess, manipulate, and mold children’s attitudes, values and beliefs without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

We recommend these resources for parents and school directors to learn more about SEL:

James Lindsay’s New Discourses web site and podcast.

https://protectourkidsnow.org/conferences-videos/

https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/SEL_WP.pdf

https://courageisahabit.org/#selsurveys

Lisa Logan’s youtube channel “Parents of Patriots”

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtlIC1oYPBQiVFjJhngZggQ

Why ask: “Will you advocate to remove SEL from your school curriculum?”

SEL programs are taking valuable time away from academic learning and may be harming our kids and contradicting values that are taught at home.

         They should be removed from the classrooms.

Why ask: “Are you aware that the superintendent of schools works for the Board, not the other way around?”

Many parents who have observed school board meetings wonder who is in charge, the people they elected or the superintendent? 

         While the superintendent is hired to run the school district, the school directors should direct the superintendent to make sure the schools are operating properly and efficiently, including academic time spent on academic learning, assessing achievement, budgetary matters, establishing policies that govern the district, and proper oversight of all contracts signed on the taxpayers’ behalf.

         The buck stops with the board!

Why ask: “Directors on the school board can make changes by changing processes, i.e., the way things are done. Are you willing to learn school district processes and work to improve them?”

What candidates believe is of limited value if they don’t think about how to affect change on a board of 9, that is mostly driven re-actively by the administration, instead of fostering leadership on the board.

Leadership requires creatively coming up with solutions to address systemic problems in an education bureaucracy, e.g., lack of transparency, lack of data to make more informed decisions, lack of protections of student privacy, etc.

One effective way of driving change is through adopting and/or changing existing policies.

In some cases, boards will have to come up with their own policies, with help from their solicitors, PSBA, or other legal counsel.

They should ask: “This is what we want to do. How can we do it legally?”

Board members should remember they pay staff and lawyers a lot of money to do what is needed. If they can’t get results from their current staff, perhaps they should consider changing who they have.