| Subject: Watch your school boards, people. |
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Anonymous
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Date Posted: 19:01:30 03/05/05 Sat
Even if you think it doesn't affect you (ie: you don't have kids, etc) it does, believe me.
On my city's school board, a well-known-to-be-kooky fundie lady ran against a VERY popular, well-respected school board member a few years ago. Well, no one thought she had a chance in hell, so a lot of people didn't bother to vote.
I bet you can guess what happened.
She won by exactly 25 votes. In a city of 160,000 people.
Since she's been on (two years), she has hijacked the agenda of the school board by introducing item after item having to do with her religious agenda. She is not shy about what she is trying to accomplish, either. She's straight up about it (which I think is infinitely better than the undercover ones).
She has tried to:
1. get the Ten Commandments (but any good fundie knows to call it a "decalogue") displayed in every school--she puts this on the agenda at EVERY meeting and they argue with her at EVERY meeting, but she's gotten nowhere except to stall any real progress the school board might make on REAL issues
2. get book covers published and distributed with the Ten Commandments and other Bible verses on them. She did this by going behind the district's BACK with money from her church and getting the district's supplier of book covers to agree to print her separate one with the Bible stuff. Five other school board members and the superintendant smacked her down at a public meeting over this. She has been trying this for two years and seems to have finally given up.
3. Get a Bible Study class in the high schools. Not a "Bible as Literature" class, but a Bible Study class. To demonstrate that students WANT such a thing, she produced a petition with over 2000 student signatures at a meeting.
Get THIS: another school board member, in her eighties and a Democrat, punked her the HELL out. She said she had a friend go to the high schools and watch this "signature gathering" stuff. She saw the school board member tell kids if they "sign this" they can have a candy bar and Coke. Not a SINGLE kid asked what they were signing (which makes me weep for the future, but hey they're kids, right? Scared).
Well, that shut her down HARD. See, she had to prove that students wanted the class and she didn't. She only proved she'll give away candy bars and Cokes for signatures.
4. Outlaw homework on Wednesday nights because of church services. Several parents and teacher groups showed up to that meeting (I'm surprised they didn't have pitchforks and flaming torches) to declare how, in THEIR religion, they have church on Thursday nights, or THEIR kid has Scout meetings on Monday nights. They essentially demanded if she gets her Wed. nights no homework policy, they get theirs, too and there was someone representing every night of the week. It was voted down 6-1.
5. She pitched a fit about naming a new middle school after Thurgood Marshall. She said because he sat on the bench for the Roe v. Wade decision, he was responsible for the "genocide" of "millions of babies" and "anything he did with regard to civil rights was made null and void by that." One of the African-American members of the board was the one who suggested Thurgood Marshall and she seems to hate that member the MOST. It was an obvious dig at him. She filibustered the meeting (I was there, dear God) and it went on until 1:30 AM (on a weeknight). Most of the people there were ready to string her up by her eyelashes long before it ended. Yelling, screaming, knashing of teeth and one book was thrown across the room. We used to have a civil school board. She implied slavery wasn't so bad, too. The school was named Thurgood Marshall Middle School in the end.
She and her husband homeschooled all four of their kids, but she thinks she knows what's best for the district. Her husband is an OB/GYN who will not prescribe birth control, nor will he give a woman a referral to a doctor who prescribes birth control.
Her husband ran, last year, against the African-American member I mentioned. He lost, 70% to 30%.
This year her 22 year old son plans to run against another member. I have heard rumblings about this for a year (the rumblings being "just let them go ahead and do it, he'll lose, too).
Fortunately the teachers, parents and citizens of my city seem to have a decent amount of common sense and know a kook when they see one. Even the republicans I have talked to are not comfortable with her wanting to blur church and state and have said things like "I send my kid to Sunday school for religious education!"
Next year, she's up for re-election. We have convinced the guy she beat by 25 votes to run again. There is ALREADY $7000 in his re-election fund for his campaign and it's over a year away. People started writing checks immediately. She's toast.
Watch your school board. I'm thankful my city has stood up to this woman, but she has caused a big mess on the board, and they have been less productive than they've ever been since she's been on. It's taught me to always be on guard. And to recruit, far in advance, good people to run. I have a short list of five community members who would be wonderful to run in case any of the good ones we have now decide not to run again. We've formed a very informal search committee that operates on a constant basis.
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