Free Republic

In what many citizens concerned with the survival of Austria as a European nation-state are calling a demographic tipping point, Muslims have now become the largest religious group in Vienna’s compulsory schools, comprising a striking 41.2% of all students across primary, secondary, and vocational education levels. The stark demographic shift has sparked outrage among conservatives and nationally-minded citizens in Austria, with the Freedom Party (FPÖ) warning that the capital is being culturally transformed beyond recognition. “This is no longer immigration. This is displacement,” said Maximilian Weinzierl, national council member and leader of the FPÖ’s youth wing. “41.2% of Muslim students—that’s...

Mesquite ISD’s $600 Million Bond Would Cost $1.1 Billion With Interest School district property taxpayers are already on the hook for $979 million in bond debt principal and interest. Yet the district’s bond marketing claims the billion-dollar debt will have minimal impact on Mesquite ISD taxpayers, who are already on the hook for $979 million in outstanding bond debt principal and interest. All this while only 42% of the district’s 38,000 students meet or exceed grade levels across all subjects

Baltimore’s public school district is going on a hiring spree while student enrollment plummets and test scores remain in the basement. Baltimore City Public Schools inflated its number of employees by nearly 19% over the six years between 2018 and last year, according to Maryland State Department of Education data analyzed by Fox 45’s Project Baltimore, an investigative initiative on the city’s floundering schools. The school district hired 1,714 more staffers while the number of students plummeted by 4,781 or 6%, the data show. It wasn’t mostly teachers the district hired, either. Over those six years, the district hired 992...

New figures show that ethnic Austrians are about to become a minority in Vienna’s elementary schools. For the first time, Muslim pupils are now the largest religious group in Vienna's schools. According to recent figures, they make up 41.2% of pupils, while Christian pupils have dropped to 34.5%. The rapid demographic change has prompted Austria’s largest party FPÖ to sound the alarm. ”41.2% Muslim pupils - it's no longer a minority, it's becoming the new majority. This isn't immigration anymore, it's displacement,” says the head of FPÖ’s youth wing Max Weinzierl. The figures come from the city's school council. They...

The Santa Clara County Office of Education and the Santa Clara County Board of Education are co-sponsoring a California bill that would establish school campuses as safe havens from immigration enforcement activity, as fears around deportations and arrests ramp up in Bay Area communities amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on noncitizens. Introduced by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat who represents Torrance, AB 49 — the California Safe Haven Schools Act — would prohibit school employees from allowing immigration officers on campuses without a warrant or approval from school officials. The bill would also require immigration officers who are allowed on...

They’ve filed complaints with the Department of Education Local parents who opted their kids out of a student survey about sexual activity and gender activity are “livid” after the district still gave the survey to them. Burlington parents have now filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Education in the wake of survey-gate, claiming the district violated the “Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment” by giving the questionnaire to students against their parents’ wishes. The controversial survey last month that was given to both middle and high school students in Burlington Public Schools had questions about: sexual intercourse, sexual orientation, gender...

Talk about unintended consequences! In 2023, Maryland Democrats voted to stick it to the Catholic-Church by lifting the statute of limitations on suing for child sexual abuse after an investigative report of the Archdiocese of Baltimore showed over 600 children had been abused there since the 1940s. Now, this might have been well intentioned, but it was also a clear attempt, and a successful one, to damage the Catholic Church in Maryland. But while the lawmakers were busy high-fiving the destruction of those awful Catholics, they ended up stepping in their own trap. Much to their chagrin, they had forgotten...

The parents of a nine-year-old girl have said they were held at a police station for 11 hours because they complained about their daughter’s primary school. . . Allen, a Times Radio producer, said six police officers turned up at his home on 29 January. He told Sky News: “When you watch the doorbell footage, you think, what are these six police officers doing? What is this operation? .. Allen had reportedly communicated to the school in May 2024 regarding the recruitment of a new headteacher but his queries were rejected. The school’s governors then reportedly wrote to the parent...

A federal judge has ruled against the Denver public schools system’s attempts to block immigration officials from carrying out raids on school grounds, marking a win for the Trump administration as it looks to ramp up its deportation efforts. U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico said Denver Public Schools failed to prove that a recent drop in student attendance at schools was due to the Trump administration reversing a 2021 Biden-era policy of protecting schools — and other sensitive areas like churches — from ICE raids. There are currently more than 1.4 million individuals on ICE's final order of removal docket....

A Connecticut student who graduated with honors in June is now suing her former high school, claiming she can't read or write and is failing college as a result of her alma mater's poor curriculum. Aleysha Ortiz was born in Puerto Rico and moved with her family to Hartford, Connecticut, when she was 5 years old. She graduated through the school program despite reading at a kindergarten or first grade level as a sixth grader, according to reporting by CNN. During her last month at Hartford Public High School, after she disclosed she was attending the University of Connecticut in...

Maryland has pushed forward a bill that would make condoms available within vending machines throughout K-12 schools, leaving hundreds in outrage as they refer to the plan as 'absolutely sickening.' Introduced by Democrat Del. Nicole Williams of Prince George's County, Bill 380 seeks to repeal a decades-old ban on condoms and other contraceptives being available within vending machines at kindergarten, nursery, elementary or secondary public schools. The state's House of Delegates advanced the bill as it passed the House vote 89-to-41 on Friday. It is now on the way to the Democrat-controlled Senate for further consideration where it is expected...

Canada is pulling funds from groups still searching for alleged bodies buried at Indigenous residential schools funded by Catholics and other Christians. An organization and a committee of experts formed to search for the elusive remains have both lost funding in the past month, following four years of searches that have found zero remains. The Survivors’ Secretariat and the committee both say they have lost funding this year, the CBC reported. One of the committee’s founding members, Crystal Gail Fraser, told the outlet in mid-February that the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials would have...

A group of elementary school principals, preschool and kindergarten teachers this week told members of the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability one classroom horror story after the next of violent and often uncontrollable student behavior. The educators detailed their graphic tales in an effort to lobby for help, to urge legislators to bolster and pass 2024’s Senate Bill 614. The bill – which passed the House and Senate earlier this year but died in the final hours of the legislative session – would offer some of the behavior intervention and safety measures now in code for middle and high...

The American Bar Association (ABA) has voted to suspend its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) standard for law schools as the Trump administration looks to gut all programs and initiatives associated with DEI within the federal government. The council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar voted to pause its current standard, known as Rule 206, until Aug. 31 while it reviews a proposed revision to the rule, according to the ABA Journal. The vote took place at the council’s quarterly meeting in San Antonio Friday. The council's standards committee said it would assess the...

Lawmakers in the Utah House Education Committee advanced a bill February 13 that would prohibit abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood from providing sex education in public schools. HB233 would prohibit “an entity employee, representative, or affiliate that performs elective abortions” from delivering instruction on “all health or health-related topics in a school that receives state funding.” The Planned Parenthood Action Fund boasts that it is “the single largest provider of sex education in the United States, reaching 1.2 million people with education and outreach each year.” According to The Salt Lake Tribune, it has been providing sex ed in state...

Score another win for parental rights and common sense. Three school districts in New Jersey were given the green light to drop a controversial transgender student policy after years of legal wrangling. On Monday, a state appellate court issued the ruling allowing Monmouth County districts Middletown, Manalapan-Englishtown and Marlboro to remove from their books the state’s guidelines on how parents are notified if their child decides to transition. The decision was welcomed by members of the Middletown school board. On Thursday night, they voted 7 to 1 to toss controversial policy 5756 in the dustbin — and simply deal with...

President Trump signed an executive order Friday to defund schools and other education agencies that require COVID-19 vaccines for students and staff. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the head of the Department of Education are directed to create a plan to end these mandates and end federal funding for entities that do not comply. Plans for the executive action were first reported Friday by Breitbart. The order helps Trump fulfill his campaign to end the mandates many schools enacted after the COVID-19 vaccines were developed and as cases were ravaging the country under his first...

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Friday halting federal funds for schools and universities that require students to be vaccinated against coronavirus before they can attend classes in person, Breitbart News has learned. According to a White House document provided to Breitbart News, the expected order also applies to education service agencies, state education agencies, and local education agencies. The order would prohibit “federal funds from being used to support or subsidize an educational service agency, state education agency, local education agency, elementary school, secondary school, or institution of higher education that requires students to...

Denver Public Schools has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over a policy allowing ICE immigration agents to enter schools. The federal lawsuit claims that the policy has caused attendance to plummet due to the amount of illegal aliens in the district. “DPS is hindered in fulfilling its mission of providing education and life services to the students who are refraining from attending DPS schools for fear of immigration enforcement actions occurring on DPS school grounds,” the lawsuit states, according to a report from ABC News. “Parents across Denver enroll their...

A teenager allegedly behind hundreds of swatting incidents pleaded guilty on Wednesday to four counts of making interstate threats. Prosecutors claimed that 18-year-old Alan Filion of Lancaster, California, made more than 375 swatting and threatening calls from 2022 through January 2024. Some of the calls included claims that he placed bombs at religious institutions, schools, and government buildings. He also threatened to detonate the bombs or carry out mass shootings, the Justice Department reported. The teenager was mostly underage at the time of the calls, but he faces up to five years for each of the four charges. “This prosecution...