Fern Ridge Families
Protecting Public Schools
You've probably heard people say some pretty alarming things about public schools recently, both in the national news and locally here in our own community. Do any of these sound familiar?
"Kids have access to inappropriate books at school!"
"The schools are full of porn!"
"The schools are hiding trans kids' identities from their parents!"
"Schools are trying to indoctrinate kids into woke gender ideology!"
"They're teaching second graders how to have sex!"
"They're teaching White kids that they are all racists!"
"They're coming for our children!"
These are real statements people are making, many of them right here in our community, talking about our public schools. Whether you hear them on the news, in person, or on social media, there is one thing that all of these statements have in common: they are absolutely false.
These statements are part of a deliberately crafted national narrative, being pushed by billionaire-funded groups such as Moms for Liberty, for the purpose of creating public distrust in our public schools. Why? The goal is two-fold: to push an evangelical religious agenda into public schools and to drum up public support for voucher programs that will siphon money away from public schools and into private religious schools.
Unfortunately, people hear these alarming claims and repeat them, innocently or not, without stopping to find the truth. We can stop disinformation with knowledge! Here's what these and other frequently repeated claims really mean and why they are false.
Porn or Inappropriate Books
Extremists all over the country - and here in the Fern Ridge district - have been making claims that there are "pornographic" books in the schools or books with content that is inappropriate for children. They may argue for the removal of books that contain profanity, any mention of sex or sexual content, controversial issues such as discussion of racial topics, and LGBTQ+ characters or themes. Oftentimes, they will claim these books are available "to little kids," when if fact the books they refer to are not available at elementary school or even middle school levels because their age recommendations are for older teens.
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The truth is that there is no pornography in schools, and no parent wants porn in the school libraries or classrooms. Extremists will label anything as porn that they don't agree with, such as a book that simply has a family in it with same-sex parents, in an effort to make public schools reflect only their personal beliefs. The fact is that there is a legal standard for determining if books are obscene (or pornographic) which is called the Miller Test, and it was developed by the Supreme Court in 1973. The Miller Test considers whether a work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value, and appeals only to the prurient interest. None of the books that have been the subject of ban efforts across the country meet the well-established legal and colloquial definitions of "pornography" or "indecency."
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Teachers and librarians are highly-trained professionals with the skills and experience to select appropriate materials for their classrooms and libraries. They choose books for their literary and educational value. Librarians use professional book review services that include age recommendations to carefully and thoughtfully curate their collections. Cries of "porn in the schools" is designed to discredit teachers and librarians and sew distrust for public schools.
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What you can do:
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1. Find out what your child is reading. If they are in middle or high school, ask to see their syllabi. Call or email their teachers to ask for a list of the term's reading materials. Get onto Schoology (middle and high school) - it is often a great way to see what your child is reading or learning. The school and the district give you lots of avenues for learning about what your child is reading - it is up to you to take advantage of those avenues!
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2. Talk to your child! Nothing replaces being a responsible and involved parent. Ask your child what they are reading and learning about. They will eventually encounter controversial subjects in their life; you, as their parent, can help guide them in learning about such subjects in whatever manner reflects your family's values by having discussions with your child.
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3. Opt your child out of material you object to. As their parent, you have the right to decide what is and is not appropriate for your own child. If there is material you object to, speak to the teacher or principal and ask to have your child be given an alternative assignment. If there are books you do not want your child to check out of the library, talk to the librarian to see how they can help you.
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4. Remember that every parent can decide what is and is not appropriate for their own child, but not for others. The materials in the schools have been chosen to be age-appropriate. You absolutely have the right to guide your own child's reading and learning, but restricting those materials for everyone else based on your personal view is censorship. Public schools serve everyone of every background!
"Gender Ideology"
The term "gender ideology" is a made-up term used by extremists as a fearmongering tactic. In general, extremists use the term to try to convince people that there is a deliberate effort by schools to "turn kids gay" or get them to change their gender. Extremists may argue that schools are deliberately "hiding" trans kids' gender identities from their parents (such as if a child asks teachers to use different pronouns or a different name). Any effort to acknowledge LGBTQ+ students, their rights and needs, or their right to see themselves reflected in a positive light in books and materials in school is met with accusations of "gender ideology." You may also see this framed as "schools should be neutral" and "not push ideological agendas." All of these phrases have the same ultimate goal: to suppress the rights or inclusive treatment of LGBTQ+ youth.
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The truth is that no one is trying to turn kids gay or trans. There is no "ideological agenda" being pushed in schools. Extremists are using this "gender ideology" disinformation to confuse and frighten people in their effort to remove any mention of the existence of LGBTQ+ people from schools. They want to silence LGBTQ+ voices, remove any book that reflects LBGTQ+ lives and experiences, and essentially push LGBTQ+ youth back into the closet. In fact, they are ones pushing the agenda - pushing their own fear of people who are not like them or pushing their moral or religious beliefs onto everyone, with potentially disastrous consequences for other people's children.
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Extremists are in particular obsessing over trans people right now, who make up only about 0.5 percent of the U.S. population. Trans youth make up only a small proportion of students in the FRSD district yet judging by the social media posts in our community you would think this is a far larger issue that it really is. The fact is, however, queer and trans youth exist and deserve to go to school in an environment where they can feel welcome and be themselves, without fear of bullying from other students or adults.
Queer and trans youth have always existed - but in past generations society forced them to hide their true selves. When you were in school, you likely knew more kids than you were aware of who were gay, lesbian, or bisexual, or who didn't feel like the typical gender stereotypes fit them, but you didn't know it because society kept them in the closet at that time. Today's younger generations are far more inclusive and accepting of differences than our earlier generations were, and Fern Ridge Families believes that is a good thing.
Extremists, however, want to send society back to the dark ages, where LGBTQ+ people were vilified, and they don't care if it hurts our youth. They don't care that an unsupportive, dismissive, and hateful environment makes LGTBQ+ youth more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their non-LGBTQ+ peers.
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LGBTQ+ youth in our district are just like any other kids...they just want to be themselves, go to school, have friends, and look forward to graduating and growing up. They do not have an "ideology" and they should not be used for someone's personal, political, or religious agenda. They are human beings deserving of respect.
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Parents' Rights
Most of the disinformation you hear is being spread under a wider banner of "Parents' Rights." The "parents' rights" movement today claims to be about giving parents more control over, and transparency into, their child's education, with the implication that public schools have suddenly eliminated parental control and transparency.
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The fact is that parents have, and have always had, control and choice when it comes to their child's education, and schools have become more transparent than ever in the digital age. In the Fern Ridge School District:
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All of the district's policies are easily accessible on the policy page of the district's website.
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The district has a Parental Rights policy that allows parents to inspect instructional materials used in the curriculum.
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District policies provide parents with the ability to opt their child out of certain activities and surveys, and to opt their child out of any materials that the parent feels are not appropriate for their own child. Our district has been very willing to work with individual families to accommodate requests to opt out of certain materials and lessons.
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The district has numerous ways to communicate with, and receive communication from parents, including email, ParentSquare, and the information the district regularly updates on its website.
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Schoology lets parents of middle and high schoolers easily see their child's progress, lessons, and assignments.
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The district's Community Involvement in Decision Making policy encourages citizens to use the various avenues available to them to be involved.
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So, if parents already have rights and transparency, what is this "parents' rights" movement about? PEN America describes "parents' rights" as political rhetoric, "invoked to mean rights for a particular group of parents with distinct ideological views, rather than a neutral effort to engage all parents and students in ensuring that schools uphold free speech rights." This rhetoric has had the effect of undermining and intimidating education professionals nationwide and chilling free speech. The terms "parents' rights" and "parental control" are just a smoke screen for hyper partisan activists trying to destroy public education in order to privatize it and profit off of it, usher in Christian Nationalist indoctrination of America's children, and effectively re-segregate schools.
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Parents needs to be partners with educators and need channels for communicating with school administrators and educators. As PEN America notes, "public schools are by design supposed to rely on the expertise, ethics, and discretion of educational professionals to make decisions." And in our district, parents are encouraged to engage with the schools through all the channels mentioned above plus some. However, remember that public schools are designed to serve everyone - students of all backgrounds, all experiences, all abilities. No parent should have the right to dictate or control what it is other parents, and all students, have the opportunity to read and learn in schools.
CRT
CRT stands for "Critical Race Theory" and it is not taught in K-12 education. Even though extremists have only recently started using it in their culture wars, CRT has been around for more than 40 years. It is a graduate level academic and legal concept, a theoretical tool that seeks to explain racial inequity. It is a complex theory that is taught in law school or graduate school, not at the K-12 level.
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Extremists have latched on to CRT and are deliberately trying to mislead the public into believing it is being taught at the K-12 level. Their real agenda is to ban lessons about slavery, racism, and civil rights (both past and current), and to remove the voices of Black authors; they are just hiding it behind claims that they don't want "CRT" in schools. The truth is that they don't want kids - theirs or anyone else's - to learn anything about the history of race in America.
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Fern Ridge Families believes that it is crucial for our kids to learn accurate history - both the good and the bad - in order to help create a strong America for their own future as well as a better America for everyone.
SEL
SEL stands for "social and emotional learning" and is a framework embedded into learning that teaches self-awareness, self-management, empathy (or social awareness), relationship-building, and responsible decision-making. These skills help kids better manage stress and improve their academic performance. SEL frameworks have been a basic part of education for decades. It has a large body of research backing it up. The term "SEL" is really just the current educational jargon for the life skills everyone needs to be successful.
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But recently, SEL has become the latest target in extremists' culture wars. SEL became the target after objections to CRT were hampered by the fact that it is a college-level theory not taught at K-12 levels. Extremists have called SEL a "Trojan horse" for CRT, and an effort to indoctrinate kids with "liberal ideology." They've objected to SEL teaching kids empathy for others with different backgrounds, arguing that differences should be ignored and all kids should be treated the same. Most people arguing against SEL seem to not have a good grasp of what it actually is, and those deliberately using it as a lightening rod are trying to capitalize on this general lack of understanding.
While SEL may teach kids about being empathetic and respectful of others, it does not teach elements of CRT; instead, SEL acknowledges that students come into the classroom from diverse backgrounds with different strengths and needs, and SEL helps create an inclusive, positive learning environment to allow all children to thrive in a classroom. The "color blind" argument, while it may be well-meaning in many people who espouse it, ignores the fact that kids do come into the learning environment from different experiences and those differences can impact how kids access learning. SEL recognizes this, and by acknowledging, understanding, and embracing the differences, the approach can help remove barriers and create a more equitable learning outcome for all students.
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Parents play the most important role in their child's social-emotional development. But kids spend a substantial amount of their day in the classroom and in after-school activities; therefore, parents and schools need to work together to foster the social and emotional skills that kids need to thrive both academically and outside of school, and that has been the purpose of SEL since its early versions were introduced over 40 years ago.
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What can you do? First, educate yourself. SEL is a complex topic, but it is not some sort of stealth vehicle for leftist indoctrination. For accurate information about what SEL is, visit the website for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). Second, when you hear someone object to SEL, ask them to define it and what the objectives of SEL are. Open a dialogue with them about what SEL is and isn't, and suggest they seek accurate information on it before forming an opinion.
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Back to Basics
When you hear people say "let's get back to basics" what they mean is reading, writing, and math, and maybe science, civics, and U.S. history. Literacy and numeracy are, of course, the core, fundamental basics that all kids need to learn; these were the primary subjects taught to kids in our grandparents' and earlier generations when an "8th grade education" was the standard. But this statement seems to insinuate that we have gotten away from these core subjects, which is not in any way true. These core basics are still taught and are still absolutely fundamental to student success.
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So, what then does this really mean? The phrase "back to basics" is most commonly used by people who want to eliminate any curriculum that teaches about racial inequality (such as accurate history, social studies, and ethnic studies), sex education, and in some cases fact-based science. "Back to basics" is a code for eliminating curriculum that does not align with the political, religious, or personal agenda of the person saying it. For some, "back to basics" means getting rid of anything that is considered "frills" such as art, social studies, health, and music.
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In the 21st century, our children need more than just the 8th grade education of our ancestors. While the fundamentals are, of course, still core to what schools teach, our children need an education that prepares them for the diverse, technology-driven world we now live in. They need to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills in order to be competitive for jobs in the 21st century. They need to learn to collaborate, communicate, and use technology in ways that improve lives. These are all skills that children can - and should - begin learning long before 8th grade. Fern Ridge Families wants all kids to receive far more than our grandparents' 8th grade education; we want them to excel, reach for the stars, and go into the world ready to make it a better place.
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What can you do? When you hear someone say "We need to get back to basics," ask them what they mean by that. Do they think we have stopped teaching the core subjects? Do they want to eliminate classes in accurate history, social studies, art, music, health? Ask them to tell you exactly what they want to cut from schools. Ask them for specific examples - within our own district - of issues they complain about, and whether they have talked to the teacher, principal, or superintendent about it.