I Asked What My Daughter Would Learn in Kindergarten. Then the Teachers Union Sued Me.

Townhall.com ^ | April 9, 2022 | Goldwater Institute

[Kaslin]

The Goldwater Institute is a leading free-market public policy research and litigation organization that is dedicated to empowering all Americans to live freer, happier lives. We accomplish real results for liberty by working in state courts, legislatures, and communities nationwide to advance, defend, and strengthen the freedom guaranteed by the constitutions of the United States and the fifty states.

The following column is by Nicole Solas, a mother in Rhode Island and a client of the Goldwater Institute.

I’m just like any parent—when I enrolled my daughter in kindergarten, I wanted to know what she would learn. In response, our school district bullied, harassed, defamed, evaded, and stonewalled me. Then the teachers union sued me. I left public school because I no longer felt safe but I’m still taking action to get answers.

Kindergarten is a precious milestone. Our babies are not babies anymore: They go to school for full days. Parents want to know their children are safe at school, and they want to feel confident that their children are receiving a quality education. I knew many public schools across the country have been politicizing lessons, so I called my principal in the South Kingstown School District in Rhode Island to ask if they teach concepts of Critical Race Theory or gender theory. That question and the events that followed changed my life.

The principal said they don’t call children “boys” and “girls,” and teachers embed values of gender theory into classroom lessons. They ask kindergartners, “What could have been done differently on Thanksgiving?” How can five-year-olds answer such a bizarre question that shames them for their American heritage? The principal told me these were “common practices” but could not define a “common practice” or tell me when these “practices” originated. Now I wanted to know these “common practices” and the educational pedagogy supporting them, but the school refused to answer my questions.

Instead, my school did everything in its power to evade me. The school told me to submit public record requests, but when I submitted what they considered to be too many requests, the school publicly threatened to sue me. They held a special public meeting to target me and treated me as if I were on trial. There, they publicized my public record requests and my personal emails. They allowed community members to speak in support of me or against me, and one woman whom I’ve never met turned directly to me and called me racist. The school even hired a PR firm to smear me in the national media. Later, the local teachers’ union had a meeting with 250 teachers where they put my name and picture on slides characterizing me as “threat to public education.” Two months later, the Rhode Island branch of the National Education Association filed a frivolous lawsuit against me to silence me and send a message to other parents that they could be punished for asking questions too.

This is all because I did what the school told me to do: submit public record requests about Critical Race Theory and gender theory. I became the target of an organized and vicious attack—all because I dared to ask questions about my child’s education.

But it backfired. Treat parents like adversaries, and they will respond like adversaries.

The Goldwater Institute has stepped in to defend me against this bullying litigation and to help me access the public information to which all parents are entitled. Without the help of a public interest law firm like Goldwater, it would be nearly impossible to pay for my legal defense and challenge a powerful public school district. But parents should not need a lawyer to know what their children are learning. Parents should not be sued by a $300 million dollar union just for asking questions.

All parents have the right to know what their kids are taught in the classroom. There is absolutely no reason why our public schools should keep this information under lock and key. Instead of being transparent, school districts bully parents like me who challenge their woke activism. If schools are so proud of what they teach, why do they go to such great lengths to hide it?

I now understand what it means to be abused by government power. If South Kingstown School District and the teachers union can so viciously target a parent, what will stop them from targeting a vulnerable child? I could not subject my daughter to such a hostile learning environment that attacks anyone with questions or a different point of view.

In stark contrast, I asked my new private school whether they taught or practiced Critical Race Theory and gender theory and the answer was simple: no. I had a tour, met the kindergarten teacher, and had my curriculum questions answered in one day. None of that was possible in the South Kingstown School District.

I hope that my story encourages more parents to ask questions about what their children are learning in public school. Remember that your taxes fund public school, and you are entitled to know exactly what you are paying for. I know the risk of retaliation is real—it happened to me—but our kids are worth the risk, and I’m still here fighting back. We have to show our kids how to stand up for themselves. If we don’t teach them that, who will?

[FamiliarFace]

They used to e happy that they could get to rebellious kids in college, then it began in high school. Then they went for tweens in middle school. Now it is elementary school and kindergarten. Many parents send their very young children to daycare or preschool. My guess is this has been going on for many years, taking mothers away from their children, and letting someone else raise their children. It’s too hard and it “takes a village.” They’ve been coming for our kids all their lives. Beware!

[Travis McGee]

How Can I Get Someone To Listen To Me And Take My Concerns Seriously?

A mother’s fight to protect her child from gender ideology.

In January of 2022, the mother of an NYC child raised the alarm about the rapid advances of Queer Theory in her child’s school. “How can I get someone to listen to me and take my concerns seriously,” she writes. “Our family has been harmed by gender ideology and pornography in schools, leading to three hospitalizations and a suicide attempt. Transition was not therapeutic and yet everywhere we turn, there is more propaganda pushing our children towards transition. There are no resources on detransition. Why is this?”

https://thelancing.substack.com/p/how-can-i-get-someone-to-listen-to?r=kn3f3&s=w

[bert]

The union didn’t sue, a person sued

Go get that person. She needs to pay

[nathanbedford]

As much as I deplore the left's exploitation of the civil rights acts for intimidation, it occurs that the tables might just be turned by the parents bringing actions against schools, school boards and teachers for violation of their civil rights.

It seems that the current state of the law does not quite cover abuse of parents, that is, it does not provide for the right to sue unless based on race, ethnicity or sexual identity etc. but the act does apparently call for notice to be given. You note in your comments that the state law now requires notice. If the abuse is gross enough, if there is a lack of notice, if that lack of notice somehow interferes with parents rights to vote on school board issues or on the school board itself, it is conceivable that the federal civil rights laws can be applied against the school.

Most likely, that sort of remedial legal action must abide the election of Republicans to control the House and Senate and, even then, somehow to control Mitch McConnell and his henchmen so the civil rights act can be amended to protect parents.

[metmom]

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

This ping list is for the other articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself)

The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.

[hecticskeptic]

Another Reason to Homeschool
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Exactly...and things will change if parents take their kids out of the school en masse. Not to say that showing up at school board meetings shouldn’t also be done but nothing makes the statement like voting with your feet.

[laxcoach]

10-15 years ago, I would need to go on cruises for work once or twice a year. We would hang out at the crew bar occasionally.

I decided that a crew of a ship was like a high school. The shore excursion people we’re the jocks. The casino people were cynical greasers/anti-jocks. The show girls were cheerleaders. And so on.

But the group that stood out to me at the time was the day care people. They were an odd bunch. I mean they put on a normal face during the day, but were weirdos at night.

I came away thinking that I wasn’t sure my kids should ever go into the “kids club”.

In retrospect, I wonder if these are the kinds of people attracted to jobs with young kids. Maybe the modern pool of talent has been inundated with these types. It would explain the string of bizarre videos that seem to appear weekly.

[Churchillspirit]

Thanks for posting this.

[glorgau]

Great if you can afford to send your kids to private school. Can’t evade the taxes for continuation of the indoctrination factory though...

[ought-six]

“Schools are poisonous. Sad. We used to have a decent system going there.”

We did until October, 1979 when Jimmy Carter created the stand-alone Department of Education. The public-employees union took it from there, and destroyed public education in the United States. It was one of the greatest tragedies in American history, because we used to have a very good public education system.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Bttt

[FlingWingFlyer]

Countersue the biatches.

[EastTexasTraveler]

You need to see The Mind Polluters if you want to know how bad the stuff is they are teaching kids. https://texasscorecard.com/state/the-mind-polluters-exposes-schools-sexualizing-kids/

[fuzzylogic]

I’d love to see every classroom in America have web broadcasted video where parents can login to a system and monitor the classroom their child is in.

There is absolutely NO REASON this can’t be done. We require police to have body cameras, it should be no different for those teaching our kids. I’d argue it is even more important.

[ridesthemiles]

IF ANYONE reading this doubts the power of the TEACHER’s Unions-—They need to read it all again.

TEACHERS are no longer teachers-—

Our kids are NOT learning life skills.

[telescope115]

I am so glad that my children are in their 30s. They were grown up before all this started, or at least before it became so wide-spread. And both of them are not planning to ever have children.
This is totally disgusting and horrifying.

[logi_cal869]

I applaud the results here, but it will not dissuade them until a message is sent.

The message:

[ExGeeEye]

By “@CrownMaybe” on Twitter, with minor edits

Still trying to puzzle out how we are so concerned about the rights of government employees to act in their own discretion, in potential violation of the rights of the people whom they are theoretically serving.

It took the right decades to understand that policemen are government employees, but we’re still clearly not there on judges and teachers.

Teachers are civil servants, no matter how you dress it up.

Teachers are our servants. If they don’t think so, we can keep firing their bosses until we find some who understand that we are in fact their masters, and they our servants.

Don’t let your warm feelings for Mrs. Martinez, who really was a great Honors Algebra teacher, render you incapable of critical thought in this area.
—
* She really was.

Allegations that Florida’s law are too vague basically boil down to both a complaint about the broadness of the instruction we just gave our servants, and a tender concern for their feelings.

Don’t have those.

Does your heart break at the thought of giving employees of the department of motor vehicles broad instructions to obey civic norms and not to undermine your relationships with your children?

Do you worry that a rule preventing local code and ordinance inspectors from casually smashing light bulbs on your property may also keep them from smashing windows?

We, for good reasons and bad, delegate a limited amount of parental authority to these government employees. They are explicitly acting in our place. They have no right at all whatsoever to do more to our children than we allow; by definition, their power flows from us.

Oh no, they’ll have to err on the side of caution and not tell small children about their private lives, or about the sperm donor they got, or about how their partners or brothers or whatever are transitioning.

They have absolutely no right to do that in the first place.

They act in loco parentis by our leave. If we make a rule forbidding discussing their private lives in the classroom, guess who gets to shut up about it.

We are a free people, not a bunch of serfs living at the whim of a bureaucratic elite. We have clearly allowed them too much security, for both they and we have lost track of who is in charge here. It is time to fix that.

[BobL]

“I’m just like any parent—when I enrolled my daughter in kindergarten...”

Kid lost already.

[Vaduz]

Give me a child for the first four years and I will own them for life.
Stalin

Little did he know it works for the first fours of school too.