Why Did Parents Demand that Our School Board Risk Their Families' Health?
The organized movement to take over school boards
I’m still shocked by last Monday night’s Transylvania County School Board meeting. How could so many parents push so hard against masks in a soaring pandemic?
Board member Marty Griffin told the audience, “You keep talking about one percent. … If you’re willing to sacrifice your [one] percent of kids … Raise your hand [to say], ‘I’ll give up my child so we won’t have mandated masks.’”
A parent opposing mandated masks also asked for a show of hands. “We the parents are ticked off,” she said.
What was behind this unnatural display? As I look for answers, I discover a colony of organizations in America that I didn’t know was being settled. And now it’s waging war.
The Hill writes, “school board meetings across the country are becoming the new front in America’s culture wars.” They focus on the Loudoun County School Board (VA)’s proposed transgender policies:
Conservatives say … parents’ anger at school boards has resulted in a growing grassroots movement.
“It does really come down to a lack of trust,” said Ian Prior, the executive director of Fight For Schools, a conservative PAC that is leading the effort to recall the school board members.
The Fight for Schools website says, “WELCOME TO THE PARENT REVOLUTION”. Under “Media” is an interview with Prior, who calls his organization a “nonpartisan political action committee [PAC]”. Then the interviewer says, “So [it’s] where parents can come together to fight the left,” and Prior doesn’t disagree.
Loudoun County School Board was sued over the transgender issue (see above) by two teachers who were represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom. The ADF website says, “It’s not too late to change the culture. The Blackstone Legal Fellowship trains future Christian lawyers to defend constitutional freedoms.”
I’m sorry, this is all I can say about these two grassroots armies at the moment. I’m dispirited by the thought of many others mobilizing our neighbors in the fight against school boards. It brings home to me that all politics is local.
Yes, all politics is local.
I sit up straighter in my chair, feeling my distress turn into the energy for a local response. We’ll need all the votes we can rouse and encourage this November for local races, so let’s rally now. GOTV has never been so #1 important.
It’s time to stake some ground.