Parents signing Freedom of Information Act paperwork and letters to their School Board members, before going off to Board members houses.
Parents around the country: You can learn from this group!
It’s the classic playbook used by school boards pushing a graphic sexuality curriculum. When parents start demanding answers from Board members, they’re told to meet with unelected administrators who are experts at evading, confusing, and marginalizing. And they’re ignored when they testify at Board meetings. Eventually they get beaten down, intimidated, and defeated. We’ve seen this for decades.
But this time it’s not working. The troop of local parents from Missouri MassResistance knows the playbook -- and has a playbook of their own! This “sex-ed” battle is going to be different.
Over 50 parents showed up on Aug. 14 to take action!
Unanswered questions and withheld material
As we’ve reported, the seven-member School Board of the Parkway School District in suburban St. Louis voted in March to implement one of the most radical and graphic LGBT-laced K-12 sexuality programs we’ve seen.
This curriculum was very frightening to many parents. They attended whatever “committee” meetings at the schools the administration had to discuss it. They voiced their concerns in the 3-minute testimonies they’re allowed at School Board meetings. They played by the rules.
But after a few months there were still lot of unanswered questions. How did these explicit and age-inappropriate subjects get selected – especially for the younger grades? Why are these graphic subjects even being taught to children? How would they teach these subjects? Why can’t parents see the teachers’ guides? Why can’t parents see the process the school used to create this curriculum? Why is the curriculum using material from Planned Parenthood and these particular LGBT groups? Exactly what would the “opt out” process be? These and other questions were dodged or ignored. Moreover, parents received a lot of conflicting information.
The frustration grew. Before long, the parents group had grown to well over a hundred.
Hundreds of parents mailed cards like this to the Superintendent, Dr. Keith Marty. But it got no results. Obviously, the elected Board needed to be involved.
Repeatedly denied a meeting with Board members
Finally, at the beginning of June the parents asked if Board members would meet with a group of them to discuss the curriculum and get the information they seek. The vice-chairman of the Board emailed them back saying that the Board memberswould not meet with them. Instead, the parents were told they must meet with the Superintendent and his staff.
So they went back to that approach. But the Superintendent insisted he would only answer questions via email. But the answers that came back were insufficient and vague, the parents said.
The Superintendent finally agreed to meet with a small group of them -- not the larger group they requested -- on Aug. 2. But that Aug. 2 meeting was basically more obfuscation and disinformation, the parents later said, and was mostly a waste of time.
One shocking thing the parents did find out from the Aug. 2 meeting was that the Superintendent intends to expand this radical agenda to include “transgender” access in all bathrooms and locker rooms throughout the school district. Parents also began to see how the GSA “gay” clubs in each middle and high school feed into the bigger agenda. As the superintendent said that evening, “We know we have at least one identified transgender in every middle and high school in the district.”
So the parents went back to the Board members to ask for a meeting to address their questions. And they continued to get refused. “I have nothing new to share. I’m not going to meet with you,” the vice-chairman blatantly said, according to one parent. Another Board member repeatedly told a parent, “The other side is so loud and angry. You all are only mildly frustrated.”
The unmitigated arrogance of elected officials is alive and well in the “Show me” state!
Parents got the message, so: “OK, we’ll visit you then!”
Most parents start to give up at this point. But not this bunch. They were just getting started!
On August 14, two weeks after the Superintendent meeting, a group of 50 parents met at a Missouri MassResistance parent’s house. They had formally invited the Board members to the meeting also. But none of them came, even though several live fairly close.
At their Aug. 14 meeting, parents got the latest information about the issue from group leaders, signed paperwork and cards under the canopy, and got instructions about more activism that day!
The group leaders were ready for that. The first thing they had parents do was fill out a round of individual FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) paperwork, for the materials that the school was withholding from view. They also had parents write some notes to Board members expressing their outrage at being treated so badly. And after that they looked to the group leaders because they were ready to do more than just that!
One of the cards parents taped to the front doors of all seven Board members houses on Aug. 14 and later that week.
When invited to take the next step, a group of the parents drove to a few of the Board members’ homes. As about 15 stood out on the sidewalk, groups of two would walk up to knock on the door. Parent organizers had prepared them with tape, pre-written notes, and pens so they could sign the notes. When the door wasn’t answered, they would tape their notes to the front door. They made sure to be very polite and identify themselves as constituents if someone came to the door.
A group of about 15 parents stood in the street in front of the first Board member's house as groups of two took turns going to the front door, knocking, and leaving notes if nobody answered.
Notes taped to the front door of the first Board member's house.
The first Board member eventually came to the door, yelled at them to “go away,” and called the police. (The police saw nothing illegal, and left the parents alone.)
Next they went to the Board member vice-chairman’s house. He came right to the door, was very angry, and said, “This is distasteful. You need to go away,” and shut the door. So they taped the notes to the door and left.
A parent leaves the house of the vice-chairman of the Board after he came to the door and yelled at her.
After that, it was too dark to go to any more houses. By then, the other Board members had been told what was happening and most were seething about it. They even had police waiting at their house – in case any more of their constituents came by! Over the following week, several other parents came during the day and left notes on ALL Board members’ front doors – just to drive the point home some more.
Getting that angry at polite constituents reveals that these Board members know they’re in the wrong, and just want it to go away. But of course, that’s not going to happen. Our prediction: If the parents keep pushing hard, they can eventually win this.
If you can’t stand the heat . . .
Parkway School District is a fairly affluent, relatively conservative area, where the people are pretty low-key and not prone to confrontations. But there’s something about arrogant elected officials who refuse to meet with constituents over something as horrific as this, that gets peoples’ blood moving.
At this point, parents are no longer interested in whether their elected officials are getting upset. They’re upset. No one forced these Board members to run for office. As Missouri native Harry Truman said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” And the parents aren’t being intimidated or defeated by the tired old left-wing tactics.
In fact several parents have said, "The more you try to discourage one of us, five more parents pop up ready to engage." These parents started out like so many do: Believing that their school principals and upper administration had their children's best in mind. As they've engaged, they've seen what’s really happening, matured, and become bolder.
In some ways, these School Board members are lucky. In Revolutionary War times, public officials got tarred and feathered for a lot less.
This Aug. 14 episode isn’t all there is to report! Part 3 is of this series is coming up.
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