Parshall Partners

Parents as Terrorists?

         It’s been said that “at the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child’s success is the positive involvement of parents”.  Sadly, not everyone involved in public education thinks that today.

         Loudoun County is an area outside of Washington, D.C. that has been stirring up a lot of controversy when it comes to the relationship of parents to local schools. The school district, known as LCPS (Loudoun County Public Schools) held a closed-door training focusing on the school board’s safety, and it was designed for school board members and staff only.  The subject of the meeting was to learn how to respond to “terrorist activity” at school board meetings. Now, before you think ISIS or AL-Queda, the “terrorists”, in this case, are parents.

         Sources who were in the closed meeting reported that actors were hired to come in and play the role of Loudoun County parents, staging them in the area where parents would sit for a school board meeting.  One actor had a gun while the other actors ran around the room screaming and yelling. The School Board members were instructed to “run, hide and fight”, as if there was an active shooter scenario.

         The School Board Chair allegedly referred to parents as “agitators” and “disrupters”, while referencing an event at a meeting last year where parents spoke in favor of two boys who were being investigated and were suspended for 10 days after a girl came into the boys’ locker room and starting filming.  The boys were appalled that a girl was allowed in and asked, “what is a girl doing in here?”  In a bizarre application of a law designed to provide a level playing field for girls in sports, the girl filed a Title IX complaint against the boys.  Apparently, she identified as a boy that day so, according to a troublesome LCPS policy, she was allowed into the boys’ locker room. 

         More and more school districts are abandoning the idea that teachers, staff and board members should work in coordination and consultation with parents.  Educators were never meant to be sparring partners with parents. 

         Just this week, a House committee held a hearing entitled “Defending Faith and Families Against Government Overreach”, that examined a Supreme Court decision from last year that gave parents the right to opt their children out of questionable material pursuant to their free exercise rights. My daughter, vice-president and legal fellow at Defending Education, was asked to testimony before the committee.  During her remarks she noted:

“Rather than orienting public classrooms toward the urgent task of reversing the nation’s flagging NAEP scores – indicating only 27% of high school seniors are numerate, and only 35% are literate – most schools seem content to educate instead for activism, social justice, and queer propaganda”.

         Schools would be better off helping students learn basic skills needed for adulthood, like reading and writing, rather than spending time training teachers on how to fight parents. Let’s encourage rather than discourage better partnerships with parents.

         Those my thoughts.  I’m Janet Parshall.