The reason? Parents and other taxpayers dared to clap after a speaker’s comments.
CAUSE FOR CONCERN
The pushback from many LCPS parents and taxpayers today revolves around a recent sharp and severe leftward turn of the school board, buoyed by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, and accompanied by a growing sense by some that the school board is no longer serving its constituents or caring for the well-being and safety of students. I will deal more in depth in other articles, but issues and policies being advanced have included:
- Attempts to force all LCPS staff, and ultimately students, to speak against truth and (in many cases) against their conscience. Emblematic of this battle was the recent suspension of LCPS Physical Education teacher Tanner Cross for voicing the opinion that his love for all the children under his care could not permit him to lie to them by using pronouns other than those corresponding to their sex. (For international readers, the United States Constitution affirms free speech. Therefore, this is a fairly clear-cut case in our county: Voicing civil opposition to a proposed policy is protected speech.) As expected, a Loudoun County Circuit Court judge quickly ruled in favor of Cross, and ordered his reinstatement. The LCPS board, however, has appealed. Several parents last night pointed out that the appeal is also a losing case and a reckless waste of Loudoun taxpayer dollars by an intransigent and ideological school board.
- LCPS’ categorical rejection of the principle of equality and individuality of students, in favor of the Marxist Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the new guiding philosophy across all schools via the implementation of an Equity initiative, the hiring of a raft of Equity officers, the recruitment of student “Bias Ambassadors” (chosen, ironically, exclusively by race, until an adjustment to the policy also made it available to white students, so long as those students are “passionate about social justice”), the creation of an online form for the reporting of “bias,” and so forth.
- Bully tactics and abuse of power by some members of the school board. Members of the LCPS board have, it appears, taken steps to silence or intimidate private citizens who, for example, oppose the board’s embrace of Critical Race Theory, or who oppose the board’s equity policy. This alleged intimidation has taken the form of the creation of lists of parents who oppose CRT, and calls or implied calls for certain adverse actions against those individuals.
- Safety of children. Multiple parents yesterday evening voiced concern about unintended consequences of LCPS proposed policy 8040, which would make it compulsory for LCPS staff to use the preferred pronouns of students who do not identify with their sex as determined at conception, and which would allow the mere claim of identity to force children into potentially dangerous situations. It is not difficult to imagine a boy with ill intentions using the loophole of the proposed policy as a means to gain access to gendered space such as locker rooms, bathrooms, accommodations during school trips, and so forth. Indeed, one family present yesterday reported their child to have been raped in just this fashion. The brave child actually took the microphone and spoke outside the building after citizens had been ejected from the meeting. At least two citizen speakers suggested yesterday that there are reasonable ways to accommodate the legitimate sensibilities of all students without placing some students in potential physical danger.
- Exposing children to sexually explicit material at school. A little more than a year ago, LCPS announced a “diversity reading list” that would be added to the library of each LCPS school. In my own preliminary review of the list at that time, I noted that about half the books were LGBTQ-oriented. Other books on the list touched on immigration (mostly favoring or making sympathetic, it seemed to me, illegal immigration), and other matters. A range of readings reflecting different viewpoints on current social issues probably makes sense in a public school library; whether an actual diversity of viewpoints is being offered is perhaps doubtful, but this is beside the point. What does not make sense, in the view of myself and other parents as evidenced by their comments, is sexually explicit content. Among the books and materials either in LCPS libraries or even included in assigned readings have been content that is explicit and highly inappropriate for children. At a recent LCPS meeting, a number of parents read out loud from such materials.
SPINNING A NARRATIVE
In recent weeks, Loudoun County has become the point of the spear in a growing national awareness of the alarming move to entrench CRT or its derivative philosophies in school policy and curricula across the nation. National media has been present at recent LCPS meetings, and the spotlight has clearly become very uncomfortable for the LCPS board, who probably would have preferred to advance these policies silently and without anyone noticing. These facts explain why, by all appearances, the shutdown of the meeting last night had been planned in advance, and it is already being spun by the leftist board, most of whom are facing recall by their constituents, as violent and fearful event.
Is clapping to encourage a speaker and to emphasize the audience’s agreement with the point or points that speaker just made simply unacceptable?
Are only approving comments allowed? May parents’ assembly to tell the school board making (in some cases) life and death decisions about their own children only be permitted so long as parents make no criticism of anything the board is doing? Is clapping to encourage a speaker and to emphasize the audience’s agreement with the point or points that speaker just made simply unacceptable?
Apparently so. At least in Loudoun County, Virginia, where the Marxist coup appears well underway.
CALLING OUT PIRACY
During the public comment time at the Loudoun County Public Schools board meeting last night, I was speaker #51 out of 259 who were signed up.
Chair Brenda Sheridan has long suggested “jazz hands” and prohibited applause, passive aggressively treating parents like children while also limiting the expression of public approval of any particular speaker’s comments.
Former Virginia State Senator Dick Black, whose remarks elicited the cheers which became the board’s pretext for shutting down further comment, was a couple of speakers after me.
The school board ended the meeting because parents were clapping and cheering. No violence. No disorderliness.
In the end, my own prepared comments proved eerily prescient: The LCPS board has indeed gone rogue, kicking parents and taxpayers (i.e. the board’s actual bosses) out of the captain’s seat.
Chair Brenda Sheridan has long suggested “jazz hands” and prohibited applause, passive aggressively treating parents like children while also limiting the expression of public approval of any particular speaker’s comments. Two weeks ago, she twice called a recess after parents clapped for speakers. Last night, Ms. Sheridan did the same following boos at an earlier speaker’s comment that “hate” was “dripping from the followers of Jesus.” (For the record, I was not among those who booed. I was actually saddened by the speaker’s comment, and also by the booing, which I felt was unnecessary.)
In the end, my own prepared comments proved eerily prescient: The LCPS board has indeed gone rogue, kicking parents and taxpayers (i.e. the board’s actual bosses) out of the captain’s seat.
The Loudoun County Public Schools board has, in other words, just mutinied.
You are not the captain. We are your bosses. And, God willing, we will return most of you to the private sector very soon. We don’t hate you, but we do love our children, we love all our neighbors, and we love this country.
My remarks follow:
First, I read the short poem “Pirate Captain Jim,” from Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” In the poem, a small captive of a pirate manipulates himself into the captain’s seat, leaving the actual captain powerless. Then I said to the school board,
“I’ve noticed a pattern.
• You treat your bosses (all of us) like children
• You treat the woke mob, your employees, and teachers’ unions like the boss,
• And you treat children who have not harmed you like pawns in your leftist social experiment
Children are not identity groups. They are individuals – each one unique. But the woke ideology you all have embraced denies this.
The United States are a nation unlike any other, where limited government accountable to the people preserves opportunity for everyone. But in the false premises of wokeness, you propose to teach kids a self-destructive hate for others, tearing down their own future.
Brenda, when you give us “time-out” for clapping, we hear you saying, “Look at me. I am the captain now.”
You are not the captain. We are your bosses. And, God willing, we will return most of you to the private sector very soon. We don’t hate you, but we do love our children, we love all our neighbors, and we love this country.”