{"id":1254969,"date":"2022-01-29T21:07:52","date_gmt":"2022-01-30T02:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1254969"},"modified":"2022-01-29T21:08:05","modified_gmt":"2022-01-30T02:08:05","slug":"the-pandemic-has-opened-parents-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-pandemic-has-opened-parents-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pandemic Has Opened Parents\u2019 Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-pandemic-has-opened-parents-eyes%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1254969&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>More&nbsp;want&nbsp;a voice \u2013 and a choice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to see parents more involved with the board of education,\u201d said Scarlett Johnson who leads the Mequon-Thiensville parents group and is seeking election to the school board. \u201cAnd I want to see less ideology in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>National School Choice Week is a celebration of parents using publicly funded vouchers to send their children to private schools. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a movement of parents who want more say in directing their child\u2019s public-school education.<\/p>\n<p>When schools went virtual in March 2020, parents became very involved in their children\u2019s education overnight and needed the schools to open up as soon as possible. When Mequon decided to go virtual in the fall of 2020, a group of concerned parents began meeting and held some of the town\u2019s first&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox6now.com\/news\/cant-shut-down-our-lives-mequon-thiensville-parents-protest-calling-for-in-person-learning-this-fall\">protests<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Once schools opened in later&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/campus\/wisconsin-parents-on-a-mission-to-recall-board-members-who-opposed-reopening\/\">September<\/a>&nbsp;2020, this parent group shifted their attention to curriculum concerns exposed through virtual learning. For instance, in spring 2020, Mequon Thiensville&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/urbanmilwaukee.com\/2021\/10\/04\/conservative-groups-backing-mequon-thiensville-school-board-recall\/\">paid<\/a>&nbsp;$42,000 for Blaquesmith Consulting to bring \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/433754377\">The Talk\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;and \u201cRealizing Our Vision\u201d to the district.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur \u2018homework\u2019 was to read \u2018White Fragility,\u2019 Ibram X Kendi and Paulo Freire\u2019s Marxist guide to indoctrinate youth titled \u2018Pedagogy of the Oppressed.\u2019 Freire was an admirer of Mao Zedong\u2019s Cultural Revolution in China and he helped facilitate Fidel Castro\u2019s brutal reign in Cuba,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThis is why parents like myself are outraged.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mequon\u2019s high school has long been considered Wisconsin\u2019s best public high school. However, test scores have been declining. From the 2015-2016 year to the 2020-2021 year, third through eighth grade reading proficiency&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/mtsdk12wius.finalsite.com\/district\/commitments\/milestones\">fell<\/a>&nbsp;from 71% to 58%. The pandemic only perpetuated this decline with grade-level reading rates falling from 67% to 58% between the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years.<\/p>\n<p>The parents group led a failed school board&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/urbanmilwaukee.com\/2021\/10\/04\/conservative-groups-backing-mequon-thiensville-school-board-recall\/\">recall<\/a>&nbsp;this past fall, but they do believe they have made some headway: the district now has an academic recovery plan and Johnson is running for the school board. \u201cOn the board, I want to be a voice against the prevailing status quo,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n<p>Joshua Russow of Belleville was only met with cagey responses from his district when he urged them to open. After discovering like-minded parents in his county with similar experiences, Russow began spending 20 plus hours a week gathering evidence for reopening.<\/p>\n<p>Public Health Madison and Dane County (PHMDC) cited Harvard time and again for keeping schools closed. So Russow, in December 2020, got in contact with Joseph Allen, Assistant Professor and Director of the Healthy Buildings Program at Harvard and one of the main experts cited in Harvard\u2019s \u201cSchools and the Path to Zero: Strategies for Pandemic Resilience in the Face of High Community Spread.\u201d Turns out, Harvard\u2019s guidance was changing, and they were encouraging schools to open. Russow organized a call with all of the Dane County district superintendents and Allen. Allen told the superintendents that their decisions to keep children out of school was \u201cunconscionable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Following the meeting, Russow said his open records requests exposed collusion between the Dane County superintendents who all agreed to fall in line with PHMDC instead of prioritizing their community\u2019s needs. Two days following the meeting with Allen, PHMDC&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/publichealthmdc.com\/news\/public-health-provides-new-guidance-as-local-schools-consider-re-opening?fbclid=IwAR2hIsjfRS4dLFrPRj9MInylkDP2vh2XHBljI0yBuRMx3eVr04uEI3-ok8I\">changed<\/a>&nbsp;their reopening guidelines making it now up to the individual school districts. Schools began opening in early 2021.<\/p>\n<p>In other districts parents have gotten involved with less success. Inna Turner of Whitefish Bay stated the school board is unresponsive to parents with opposing views. \u201cWhen we did a FOIA request they ignored it,\u201d she said. \u201cThey had $36 million in the budget that was allocated in three very general categories for which they would not provide us a breakdown.\u201d The district has continued to push Critical Race Theory. \u201cThere is now an elective course in the high school called \u2018Leadership for Social Justice\u2019 to teach our children how to be Social Justice warriors,\u201d Turner said. Turner began sending her son to a private school in the fall of 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Other parent groups have arisen to protect districts from what they consider harmful political ideologies. Bill Brewer has led a parent group in Slinger and is now seeking election to the school board. \u201cWe have to take proactive steps to prevent things from taking root and that\u2019s the work that is not being done by the school board,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>While Brewer feels he is fortunate to be in a district that appears not to push Critical Race Theory, he does feel the school board needs to be more responsive. \u201cI came as a concerned parent in June to talk about resources, websites, books, etc., and to ask for the school board\u2019s help. At times I was met with denials and hostility.\u201d&nbsp;Brewer is running because he wants to \u201chelp parents to be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Choice is about just that: giving parents the right to have a say in their child\u2019s education. Public school parents wanting choice is not just a Wisconsin phenomenon. Parents all<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More\u00a0want\u00a0a voice \u2013 and a choice. \u201cI want to see parents more involved with the board of education,\u201d said Scarlett Johnson who leads the Mequon-Thiensville parents group and is seeking election to the school board. \u201cAnd I want to see less ideology in the classroom.\u201d National School Choice Week is a celebration of parents using &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1897456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1254969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1254969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1897456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1254969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1254969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1254969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}