School Districts Punish Folks Who Draw Unwanted Attention To Controversial Policies
As controversial policies spread, we see two examples of districts retaliating against folks who bring unwanted attention. For Forbes.com.
One example is Penncrest School District in Pennsylvania.
The Penncrest School District, which has been working to get reading restrictions in place for its students. The district had previously expressed its objections to critical race theory, and in 2021, the board sought to impose reading restrictions.
The language, modeled after similar controversial book restrictions in Bucks County (apparently co-written by an attorney from the Independence Law Center, the legal arm of the far right Pennsylvania Family Institute) was somewhat neutral, but board member comments on social media were not. Commenting on Facebook about a picture of a Pride month book display in the high school library, a member commented:
Besides the point of being totally evil, this is not what we need to be teaching kids. They aren't at school to be brainwashed into thinking homosexuality is okay. Its [sic] actually being promoted to the point where it's even 'cool'.
Member David Valesky also noted in separate discussion of books about race that Black Lives Matter “is for destroying” and “they aren’t protecting Blacks.” When they passed the reading restriction rules, Valesky responded to the possibility of legal challenges with:
If we go to court over it, so be it, because at the end of the day we’re standing up for what’s right and for what God has said is right and true.
Their board lawyer resigned, noting that his advice about the legality of their actions was not only repeatedly ignored, but two board members called his opinion “a joke,” “worthless,” and “not even legal.”
All of this drew a couple of lawsuits and attention from national media, including a USA Today reporter who has file Right To Know requests, and Judy Woodruff, who visited the district earlier this year for a piece for PBS Newshour.
Board President Luigi DeFrancesco earlier this week introduced a motion to censure board member Jeff Brooks, accusing him of stirring up commotion around all of the board’s actions.
Specifically, the resolution accuses Brooks of “unprofessional conduct” because he “incite[d] the gay community against board members,” provoked Right To Know requests which led to unnecessary legal expenses (when the Meadville Tribune asked DeFrancesco how much expense, he replied “I have no idea”), and was “communicating with the media, specifically with USA Today which led to the RTK requests.” Brooks is also accused of harassing board members, including harassing DeFrancesco by exposing his emails that led to a RTK request.
In short, Brooks is accused of drawing widespread attention to the conservative members’ actions as board members.
This sounds like it could have been written about a number of school districts in TN - it's unfortunate.
I appreciate how social media allows us to see the idiocy of elected officials. It saddens me how many people come to defend their awful statements.