The way unions and their activists stack school board meetings, it’s a wonder that Nathan, a San Juan Hills High School senior, could get up at a Capistrano Unified School District board meeting April 24, and in one minute crystallize a cancer that has eaten away at American society for decades:
“Any trustee who deliberately takes such a quote out of context to falsely smear a colleague as a racist is betraying that trust and manipulating the situation for political gain,” Nathan (1:14:10) said to a packed house.
The topic was a book the board had earlier approved 7-0 called “James,” a book filled with the N-word. The issue, however, is deeper. Union power over our schools is now challenged. And they’re resorting to ugly, false smears, just like always, only now they’re being called out.
It’s not just feisty new board members around the country, but also supportive communities that understand the union and the legislators they employ have been manipulating and misinforming them about what they’re doing in our schools.
Within the context of discussions on the book at the March board meeting, a Capistrano Unified board member, Judy Bullockus, quoted a line from the board-approved book. No one was shocked or appalled. There were no gasps in the crowd. It was simply a discussion about the book and its contents.
But after the meeting, union-controlled board members, Krista Castellanos and Gary Pritchard, twisted the context of the discussion and accused Bullockus of using a racial slur. They created a crisis out of nothing. They publicly dramatized the “pain” caused by their colleague’s reading of the passage – and this is out of a book all of them approved – setting off a districtwide firestorm that on April 24 culminated with numerous calls for Castellanos and Pritchard to resign.
And the shock – the utter shock – that emanated from the unions and their hard-left activists surged forth, bearing all that hatred and cliched victimhood about the “pain” or “harm” the reading did to the “community.”
And then, like always, they organized a bunch of manipulated kids and activist adults to converge on the April board meeting with speeches to attack Judy Bullockus and to call for her resignation. They showed up early in order to grab up all the speakers’ cards and dominate the meeting. They brought divisive protest signs that should never be part of school board meetings. One said, “You have to be a ‘B’ word to say the ‘N’ word.”
But for once, the union mafia was outsmarted.
Dozens of Capistrano-area speakers showed up even earlier than the union organizers, and they rose to defend common-sense education and denounce those seeking to weaponize the incident for political gain.
Just like Nathan said.
“When a trustee uses the N-word while discussing a book, it is clearly within an educational context, not as a slur. … Our educators and fellow students know the difference between quoting literature and using hateful language.”
Nathan, and several other students who shared equally common sense sentiments, give us hope.
We have witnessed countless board meetings at which union activists run roughshod over innocent community members and trustees while seeking to force their angry agenda and alternative worldview onto innocent children in our schools. They’ve been bullying for decades, and tragically, they’ve made a ton of progress. They’ve also silenced community members who’ve been too terrified to attend board meetings.
So it was good to see honest community members come out in force, and we hope more will join them.
The meeting abruptly ended when an angry woman refused to stop yelling, evidently miffed at the overwhelming enlightenment of the speakers and their numerous audience supporters. Someone was screaming and complaining that the new conservative board majority manipulated the speaker list to silence the activists.
Related Articles
Brian Jones: Criminal deportations are happening, will California adjust? Medicaid can’t survive without spending cuts Cottie Petrie-Norris: California cannot afford to let drunk driving remain an epidemic Financial surveillance threatens California border businesses The Legislature must confront the real drivers of our cost-of-living crisis But that wasn’t the case. The good-guy community members, those who pay the taxes to fund Capistrano Unified, simply outsmarted the angry activists. They showed up earlier; secured their speaker’s cards, stuck around for several hours, and delivered their messages.Community members should not have to show up hours early and battle against well-funded union activists in order to make their voices heard at their local school board meetings. And no community should be subjected to lies and manipulations by elected trustees. Again, as Nathan said, “Any trustee who deliberately takes such a quote out of context to falsely smear a colleague as a racist is betraying that trust and manipulating the situation for political gain.”
A high-schooler like Nathan should not have to fight against political forces in order to receive an education. It’s time to restore our schools to our community.
Rebecca Friedrichs is the founder of For Kids and Country, and a 28-year public school teacher who was the lead plaintiff in Friedrichs v. CTA. Roger Ruvolo is a longtime newspaper editor and a contributor to For Kids & Country.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( If activist trustees won’t tell the truth, the students will )
Also on site :