The following is a breakdown of the SEL program. Watch the speeches before and after to see parental concerns.
Bottom line... our public schools have one job: Educational excellence. The social-emotional health of our children is the PARENTS' responsibility.
What have I learned?
Everyday we work hard to make a living for our families but fail to pay attention to the “public servants” to whom we entrust our children. Due to public school overreach on Covid protocols, I now attend most Dublin City School board meetings with a group of engaged parents. As I listen to the meetings, I am appalled by what has been occurring in the District under the cover of noble concepts like diversity, inclusion, equity and mental health:
The link below is the most comprehensive guide on the current events occurring in Dublin City Schools (make sure you check out Part 2).
When parents question the District’s agenda, they are met with silence, excuses and/or claims of misunderstandings. There is little transparency and no accountability. For example, when I asked my child’s principal why schools were administering Covid vaccines, I was told such procedures are considered “normal” because the schools also administer seasonal flu shots.
But why is a school utilizing its limited resources to administer and push any vaccines? This is a private health decision made between parents and their children’s doctor. The schools’ focus and resources need to be on academics and core curriculum.
I've worked on a lot of big projects in my career. Big projects are huge investments so we have to clearly explain what is a MUST and what is a WANT. One of many jaw-dropping moments at the Dublin City School Board meetings was on October 11, 2021 when I heard the newly hired SEL director (180K+ worth of total salary and benefits) attempt to justify the new SEL initiatives. Watch the video below.
If a brand new SEL program – which steals precious time, money and resources from academics - is so important to the mental health of our children, why is the example chosen, one of a child dropping a salad and behaving rudely? What are the pressing student mental health problems that we MUST solve? What are the ones we WANT solved? WHO should be the ones to do the solving? And at WHAT price?
If an individual levy for an SEL program with associated costs was put on the ballot, would the community vote for it - when they are given no concrete examples of actual necessity or proven effectiveness? And no measurement as to how much time and resources would be taken away from academics in order to implement it?
What has Representative Tracy Richardson achieved?
Schools - How it started?
MASKS... For the last two years, our public schools have forced our children to wear masks for 8+ hours a day. Masks which are never changed and are quickly contaminated by the child’s own hands, saliva, and sweat. The public schools put this arbitrary mandate in place with no relevant data as to effectiveness of preventing community spread and with no cost/benefit analysis in regard to its effect on childhood development, health and education outcomes.
The public schools not only stole a parent’s right to make the personal health care decisions of their children, but also OUR CHILDREN's right to have a face. They did this with NO regard to potential damaging side effects. For two years.
It is obvious that politicians, health departments, most local Board of Education members, and even some district employees do not – despite their adamant claims - actually care about the “whole child.”
The first board meeting I spoke at (March 8, 2021) summarizes my thoughts about masks from Day 1.
Where were our politicians while this was happening? Ohio has a SUPER REPUBLICAN MAJORITY yet they allowed this abuse of our children to continue for two years. While school boards across the State of Ohio should have shown more courage, it was the Ohio Assembly’s job to make forced masking ILLEGAL.
Legislation must be put in place so our children will never again be forced to wear ineffective and dehumanizing masks at school. My Day 1 promise (January 2023) is to have that legislation ready to go. I will ask members to get it on the house floor to vote IMMEDIATELY!
Where do we go from here?
Education must be controlled at the local level. Step 1: Remove the federal government from education. Step 2: Remove the state government from education.
Competition between local school districts should be encouraged. If a local school district is teaching inappropriate material, a parent should be able to divert their local tax money to the school of their choice. If a parent homeschools, they should be allowed to divert their tax money to materials used to educate their child.
Local districts must be forced to be transparent on how tax dollar levies and other funds are spent. Studying the finance reports generated from the district, it is almost impossible to determine where federal, state, and local money is going.
The purpose and cost (monetary and academic) of programs such as SEL need to be clear. We should break school levies into multiple levies: a "Must" levy and multiple "Want" levies.
Parent's need to create contracts with the district to hold their elected School Board Officials accountable. Reference Mark Pukita's (whom I fully endorse for Ohio US Senate) contract with the district. Local communities need to make clear what is and is not acceptable in their children’s curriculum, including the materials used to teach it. For example, I would like to see electronic devices removed from education until at least the fourth grade. This could be built into a contract with the district.
Our Teachers
I have the utmost respect for our teachers. When I look back, I can name every teacher I had from K-6 and tell you exactly how each one helped make me who I am today.
My parents were also teachers, and I learned a lot from them about government oversight and how it can handcuff our teachers. Everyday, teachers interact with and get to know our children. They are the ones on the frontline. This makes teachers the most qualified to see issues as they arise and to adjust their teaching style accordingly.
Yet district teachers have been forced to voice their concerns anonymously about current events in our schools as they are too afraid to speak out against the prevailing left-wing narrative. This situation is not acceptable.
Where were teacher's unions the last two years? Did they stand up for our teachers on forced school closings, masking and vaccinations? Did they stop the pressure on our teachers to pledge allegiance to the latest progressive theories on race, gender, and mental health? Did they make sure our teachers had the freedom and academic resources needed to effectively teach through the pandemic?
How can districts afford costly DEI and SEL initiatives while our teachers are silenced and left to fundraise for academic classroom projects on their own?
It is time to let teachers teach and provide them with the necessary resources to do so.