Posted on 04/25/2002 8:05:45 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
Minnesota school will consider limiting visits by parents Publishing date: 04-24-2002 11:09 PM
At a time when many schools practically beg parents to get involved in their child's education, some parents in Big Lake say they've tried, but the district treats them like the enemy.
"What's gonna be going on there that you're not wanting me to see? What are you teaching my child?," asks one parent.
"I think it is because parents have been asking too many questions about the curriculum," says parent Teri Dickinson.
Parents have loudly objected to some of the lesson taught at the Big Lake High School. One textbook in particular has drawn a lot of attention. It’s called Oppression and Social Justice. Parents say it rails against white males and capitalism.
"It was overwhelmingly political. It was a very liberal political agenda," says Dickinson.
The book states as fact that crime figures are exaggerated to scare people into building more prisons to lock up the poor. It states as fact that T-V networks--even PBS-- are run by Republicans, pushing their conservative, pro-business agenda. It urges students to become environmental activists, saying groups like the Sierra Club are too mainstream. And it states emphatically that America must cut defense spending and raise corporate taxes.
Last fall, one woman took video of student drawings on the wall, depicting Christopher Columbus as a rapist and killer. Now the district is talking about restricting videotaping in school and telling parents to give three days notice if they want to visit a classroom.
"In that three days, the teacher can basically hide everything if that's what they want to do, and keep things from the parents that they don't want the parents to see," says sophomore student Jeff Florek.
Eyewitness News spoke with the school superintendent and assistant superintendent, both of whom did not want to appear on camera. They say the visitation policy is a routine matter and that they are simply updating an old policy.
School administrators say the curriculum debate is another matter. The textbook Oppression and Social Justice is not required reading, but rather part of the school’s diverse perspectives course which is suppose to provide alternative viewpoints. The class was developed to meet the state’s graduation requirements.
Parents say they want to know these things.
"If I'm not allowed to be in class, then how can I be as involved as a parent with my child?" asks Becky Martin.
The district’s school board will vote on the new policy tonight. If it passes, school officials say some visitors could get a waiver from the three-day requirement if the principal thinks their visit would enhance the classroom setting.
I imagine that the heavy timber, mining, shipping and agricultural nature of the economy has played a part. Diagnosis of the agenda of Rino, big government, republicans offered perhaps gave them little choice but to vote their pocket books, but conservatives are out there now and if they don't see the difference, then there is no hope for them.
The schools put on a show of wanting "parental involvement," putting out questionnaires asking for parents to join panels reviewing "family life" (i.e., sex-ed) curriculum, and other "parent-advisory" boards. But none of us who'd signed up ever got a response!
After seeing up-close-and personal the idiotic new teachers, fresh out of brain-washing "teachers' colleges;" the dumbing down of the curriculum and the leftist propaganda that is being substituted for true academic subjects, we wised up.
We now homeschool our youngest, and have our remaining high school student in an alternative academy.
gumbo's complaint " But none of us who'd signed up ever got a response! " is oh too common. Teachers must pass around their blacklists. Parents have to morph into puppets of the liberal agenda to get invited to volunteer their time at the school for anything, and in order to avoid reparations against their kids.
Raising corporate taxes? Guys, this sounds familiar for some reason....
But that's not all. We took our kids out of school one Friday for a family trip. On the following Monday, the high school principal told my wife that it would be an unexcused absence because we didn't notify the school in advance and get their permission. He also told her that he, not the parent, was the "final authority" when it came to deciding if our child could be absent from school.
I have to say, after this happened three times (signing up for "parent advisory" groups, then never getting a response), I started to wonder if I'd been lured into blacklisting myself.
Want to control what your kids are learning? Then pay for it yourself! And work steadfastly to defund these concentration camps for kids!
Paying for school yourself is the only case where the "separation of church and state" makes sense.
It will maintain the purity of private schools.
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