School board members, parents and politicians are speaking out in opposition to the Department of Justice’s decision to investigate parents who might dare to protest the policies and curriculum adopted by public schools.
The Biden administration announced this week that the FBI has been tasked with investigating “threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.”
Opponents say the Biden administration is turning policy disagreement into “domestic terrorism.”
“Threats of violence are always unacceptable but this attempt to silence critics of Critical Race Theory by painting rightfully angry parents as a violent threat is absurd and obscene,” Agua Fria School Board Member Trey Terry told the Arizona Daily Independent. “It is also entirely inappropriate for the federal government to imagine that it has any role in the functioning of local school districts or boards.”
“As a result of COVID mitigation, many parents, for the first time, peaked into their children’s classrooms where they could see what their children were being taught,” said Peoria Unified School District School Board Member Rep. Beverly Pingerelli. “Many found curriculum elements such as Critical Race Theory to be extremely offensive to our shared national values and beliefs, and this has sparked a nationwide outrage by grassroots parent groups. I believe parents deserve to have a say in what their children are being taught, as their taxes fund public education. Outspoken parents and groups protesting peacefully, standing up for their kids, should not be labeled as threats or domestic terrorists.”
Across the country, in both blue and red communities, parents and other stakeholders have come before school boards to object to the divisive, Marxist-based Critical Race Theory and the K-12 curricula that stems from it. Parents’ groups have sprouted up in response and videos are shared far and wide on social media of everyone from celebrities to young children addressing boards with their concerns.
The National School Boards Association is behind the federal attack on parents. At the same time, local schools have made it nearly impossible for parents and other community members to have input in their neighborhood schools’ policies and practices.
Parents say some school board members have put them on the defensive by falsely accusing them of being bigots for merely asking questions about what might be taught to their children. Parents, fearing retaliation from bullying board members, know that they risk the welfare of their kids if they even question the age appropriateness of classroom materials or the science behind COVID-19 protocols.
Heather Rooks and Devon Updegraff-Day, founders of West Valley Parents Uniting, serve as examples of the parent-turned-activist created by controversial curricula. They issued a statement questioning the Biden administration’s directive to the “FBI and nationwide law enforcement to develop new strategies designed to counter America’s new threat, momma and pappa bears.”
“Administrators, school board members, and teachers are not the victims,” said Rooks and Updegraff-Day. “The children are the victims! They have always been the victims; our children have been used as pawns for twisted political games for decades and parents have finally had enough […] The Biden Administration can issue warnings to parents and threaten legal recourse all they want; parents will never be made silent! Parents have the right and will always have the right to speak out against ANYTHING they deem inappropriate or detrimental to their child’s well-being; that is what being a parent is all about. The Biden Administration needs to get their tail out from between their legs and fight against real threats in America and stop trying to create distractions. Criminal conduct behavior is widespread, but one of the few places where it is not occurring is at school board meetings!”