Twelve Stones Podcast, Episode 7: Cindy Dickens

This is what Social Emotional Learning (SEL) does to school kids. It needs to be purged from our local schools. Listen to Cindy and JJ's story. Our culture, including our school districts are minefields when these agendas are pursued by school administrators and teachers. The book mentioned in the interview, Thirteen Reasons Why is located in three of the Christian County Library teen sections: Sparta, Nixa, and Clever. The Netflix series, seasons one and two are in the Ozark branch.

Ungodly Stats

 

By Gretchen Garrity

Gays Against Groomers has written an article, "The Rise of Trans Ideology," that gives statistics you may not have seen. Well-referenced, the article points out the cult-like nature of trans ideology. I spoke recently with two school board members and an educational director at a local school district. Going by the statistics in the article, there could be anywhere from about 30 to over 80 students in the school district who would be grappling with or actually "transitioning."

The article discusses the disconnect that kids today are experiencing due to social media and a lack of community: "These children have been left and abandoned, unintentionally for the most part, to fend for themselves and are expected to thrive in a society that they do not understand, looking for their place in the world. So they start looking outside themselves for understanding, and they find it in the form of people telling them what they think they are. They hear this belief that they are trans (transgender). They hear this term over and over again, day in and day out. The truth is, they were just looking for a place to fit in and finding this group of people who seem like they are just like them."

One board member became agitated and uncomfortable with even mentioning gender issues. Another asserted it was not an issue in their school district, and when pressed asserted President Trump would fix the problem.

The school staff member stated ignorance of transgender students in the district, such as how many were actually "transitioning." This individual was not sure how many books dealing with gender ideology were in the library.

At this school district there is no stated policy, and at the last board meeting, the board refused to discuss adding a policy definition of sex as based on biology when a motion was made to bring up the subject. No one seconded the motion to discuss. No one.

Parents and citizens, you must stand up and insist that your school district attend to the cult of transgenderism. It matters not how busy you are, how late you have to work, that your children would never get involved in something like that. Ask Elon Musk how that worked for him. If it can happen to his child, it can happen to your child, your grandchild, your friends' children.

You MUST begin attending school board meetings. You MUST educate yourself on how schools, through state and federal guidelines and NGOs, are pushing gender ideology. While President Trump may be able to do some things on the federal level, it is up to citizens to ensure that your local school district is not heeding the Wormtongue advice of lawyers to avoid lawsuits by avoiding the issue. There is too much at stake.

Resources:

Studies on Medical Issues Related to Transitioning

Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans

Into the Darkness

This stuff is in your schools, and your hospitals, and your libraries. It is being pushed through government policies that trickle down to the local level, where unknowing and/or uncaring officials implement policies that are deeply harmful to the mental and physical health of children. They do this to keep the flow of federal dollars going. Parents and citizens must be aware of what is happening. Please watch and share.

BREAKING: Our film “What is a Doctor” has officially been released.

We expose “gender-affirming care” for what it really is—Medical Mutilation.

The profit motive, the corruption, and the racketeering—watch now and see the lies unfold. pic.twitter.com/hSw7BkXbCo

— Frontline Films® (@FrontlineFilmsU) November 18, 2024

Would you want to know?

 

 Do you think it's important to know what your local school's official policy is regarding transgender issues? Should it be easily accessible to parents and students?

Should trans 'girls' be able to go in the girls' bathroom? Should trans 'boys' be able to go in the boys' bathroom? How is that handled at your school? What if your school's officials were allowing transgender kids to use staff bathrooms in order to accommodate them and avoid any issues with other students? Should parents be informed of the policy?

What about students who are hiding transitioning at home, but being open about it at school? Should parents be informed if a student requests a different name or affirms they are a different sex than at birth? How accommodating should the school be? For transparency's sake, does your school spell out how transgender students are accommodated? 

Are all parents informed if a child transitions in their child's classroom?

Buy HERE.

Do you know how many books are in the school library that advocate for gender ideology? How would you be able to find out if you wanted to know? Is the staff at your school transparent with their policies and actions, or do they seek to downplay any issues? Do they even admit there is an issue?

If a student affirms their status as a transgender individual at school, how are school counselors and nurses instructed to handle it? At what point, if any, are parents informed? How informed is your school's staff about transgender issues? What resources and training are being used to instruct them? Are school staff medically and psychologically trained on all aspects of the issue? Do they affirm the child automatically? 

Is the child referred to an outside resource like Burrell? What about The Trevor Project? Is WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) any part of your school's counseling and health protocols? Should parents be aware of what resources are being used to aid transgender students?

Does your school policy differentiate between very young students and older students who are dealing with transgender issues? How are other students instructed when a transgender child presents in school?

What is your school's policy regarding sports? Can transgender students play sports on a team that is not reflective of their biological sex? What about other school districts who may insist that transgender students can compete when your school's policy is different?

What legal issues are involved? Are your school board's attorneys well versed, or are they risk averse? 

 

So many questions. Citizens should begin asking their school boards for answers. If you don't get answers that satisfy (and you won't), keep asking. Be loud and insistent. Don't let your school hide behind evasion and deception. Make your school grapple with these hard questions and be transparent. Your children are counting on you.

Why Kids Aren't Learning

 The next time your local school district makes YET MORE EXCUSES for poor student scores--some are truly scandalous in Christian County--ask them to ponder this:

Link HERE.

In Case You Haven't Seen This

Cross-posted from Hick Christian:

 

I Was There

One eyewitness shares their account of the fight in the libraries and schools.

Read on Substack

Portrait of an Agenda

Portrait of a Graduate hell mouth

By Gretchen Garrity

The Hell Mouth that is our education system is fast swallowing the rights of parents and the well being of children in a swill of globalist agendas designed to usher in a compliant and submissive population of workers.

And local schools in Christian and Greene counties are implementing these agendas, including the Ozark and Nixa school districts, and Springfield Public Schools.

I will concentrate on one program, the Portrait of a Graduate, as an illustration of what is happening. However, there are dozens of such programs that have been inserted into schools through curriculum, teaching methods, counseling programs, even health programs.

Here is one explanation of Portrait of a Graduate (and you can find lots more at the link):

"Originating with the non-profit organization Battelle for Kids, and shaped by transformational education partners like KnowledgeWorks, POG programs have been adopted by states and districts nationwide, all using similar terminology geared towards a single vision:

• Collective goals for graduates
• Mindset requirements for student “success”
• Equitable practices embedded in schools

The Portrait of a Graduate framework is fundamentally incompatible with the classical liberal idea that “hopes, dreams, and aspirations” for a student solely belong to the student and his or her family, not controlled by a “community” or “collective vision” six degrees removed from the student."

The amount of private, non-governmental organizations that suck the lifeblood out of local public schools is mind-boggling. These groups work hand-in-glove with government agencies, like the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, to implement globalist agendas. These agendas are presented as new methods, new ways of educating children, even the transformation of the education system, and include a plethora of training, resources, legal aid, consulting, and so forth for teachers, administrators, and students.

For instance, here's Panorama Education, a website that helps schools implement Portrait of a Graduate. Data collection via surveys and other means is featured, according to Higher Ground, a website focused on exposing the systems that are transforming our institutions:

“Panorama Education’s website shows how they build their behavioral surveys and data collection around Portrait of a Graduate. (Panorama was founded by US AG Merrick Garland’s son-in-law—the reason that Garland went after parents that oppose Critical Race Theory at local school boards).” -- Higher Ground

These organizations are very clever in presenting to their public school customers a competency and confidence in their expertise. Materials and training are professionally produced and thorough. 

Your tax dollars are paying for it all.

As many others have asserted, there is a particular cooperation that has happened at the highest levels of business and government to implement an overarching program of gaining control of children in every aspect of their being. From intrusive data collection to mind-bending indoctrination of children into an authoritarian control grid, the globalist agenda has overwhelmed local schools.

EXPOSING PORTRAIT OF A GRADUATE

From: Ozark School District

“Portrait of a Graduate is being used to fundamentally transform the purpose of US education—shifting curriculum, assessment, school accountability and data collection away from academics and towards Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).”  -- Higher Ground

While your local school district touts the Portrait of a Graduate (hereafter referred to as POG) program as a positive and exciting learning avenue for students, it is in reality a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) system. It indoctrinates students to be flexible, teachable, resilient, collaborative, dependable, etc., to ideologies like Critical Theory, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and other Marxist-type ways of thinking and being.

Parents take the words at face value, not understanding that students are being taught a form of Groupthink. In the Ozark School District, POG has been implemented at all grade levels--K-12. According to the school district, "In 2020, we gathered members of our community and asked what character traits are important for an Ozark graduate. The discussion resulted in nine traits we have embedded within our curriculum to ensure our graduates are prepared for success."

The nine traits that the Ozark School District supposedly chose after gathering the community together, is almost exactly what the promulgators of this globalist program suggest on their websites, and is remarkably similar to most other school districts that implement POG. See the graphic above.

PUSHING POG ON THE SCHOOL BOARD LEVEL

Also in Ozark, the administration often has a Portrait of a Graduate recognitions program at the monthly school board meetings. A child from each grade level is chosen to appear and receive a certificate for their adherence to the trait of the month. A teacher or other adult describes to the board how that child has exemplified the trait during their school day, and why they deserve to be recognized.

It goes on for sometimes close to an hour. This is part of the schtick of POG, highlighting the children in a public setting. It reinforces the program not only for students, but parents and indeed the school board. Of course this type of recognition does not belong in the monthly business meeting of a school district. It is for show. And it works, unfortunately. It is one reason why the public portion of the board meetings can stretch three or more hours.

MOVING ON TO NIXA

The Nixa public school district has this to say about their Portrait of an Eagle:

"To ensure our portrait was not just a piece an unused document, we chose to go through a comprehensive process similar to our CSIP when developing our Portrait of an Eagle. We worked with Battelle for Kids, a national not-for-profit organization committed to collaborating with school systems and communities to realize the power and promise of 21st-century learning. In the fall of 2022, we assembled a design team consisting of a diverse group of community members, families, students, and educators. In all, our design team consisted of around 70-80 members, with one-third being students. Our design team was driven by our leadership team, which was made up of building and district leadership."

And guess what Nixa schools came up with: Critical Thinkers, Confident, Adaptable, Empathetic, Effective Communicators.

The organization that worked with the Nixa school district, Battelle Kids, is linked with KnowledgeWorks, a Bill Gates-funded organization that promotes SEL. (As an aside, be on the lookout for anything like "competencies," or "competency-based education." These go hand-in-hand with what Battelle Kids and the other NGOs are SEL-ling to us. Because the public school system is imploding via poor student outcomes, the focus has become "soft skills," "competencies," "attitudes," and "values.")

From: Nixa School District

 

 

 

 

HOW ABOUT THE SPRINGFIELD PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

Here's what SPS has to say about their POG choice of attributes:

"Over the past few years, Springfield Public Schools officials asked a diverse group of stakeholders to come together to identify the community's goals for all students. The goal was to create the District's Portrait of a Graduate. The stakeholders included parents, teachers, students, business leaders, representatives from higher education, and area non-profits...The group identified six core attributes all students will need to be successful post-graduation. The attributes include academically empowered, engaged citizen, collaborator, communicator, creative, and critical thinker. Once the core attributes were identified, the process of building a platform in which students can showcase their work was started."

And just to show readers that POG is not only for students, the SPS also is anticipating a Portrait of an Educator. The indoctrination is deep and wide:

"Portrait of an Educator empowers teachers to demonstrate the skills necessary to support students becoming contributing community members. More information on Portrait of an Educator is coming soon." 

GLOBAL, NOT LOCAL

None of this is a local effort, other than to gather and guide along any area "stakeholders" as the agenda is implemented. According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, Emotional, Learning (CASEL), "A recent scan of employer surveys and job listings confirmed that the most in-demand skills, such as teamwork and adaptability, are high-level social and emotional skills (Yoder et al., 2020)."  

Organizations like CASEL, which are integral to helping implement SEL in schools nationwide, spend a lot of time focusing on what employers want in a worker, rather than graduating students who are independent-minded and can read, write, and do math well. They are blowing smoke in the eyes of parents, and encouraging administrators and staff to collude with organizations like the World Economic Forum, and UNESCO. 

They pay lip service to "critical thinking," but the overall focus is on traits that allow groups like CASEL and the WEF to inject the SEL agenda.

 Like many other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), CASEL is active politically:

"The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and Committee for Children applaud the FY2024 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies bill, which provides essential funding for K-12 education, including a Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Initiative to support SEL and “whole child” approaches to education and other investments that support students’ academic, social, and emotional learning. CASEL, Committee for Children, and the Leading with SEL Coalition sent a letter to appropriators calling for investments in SEL. The SEL and Whole Child Initiative..."

The UN's educational arm, UNESCO is busy with SEL, too:

"At UNESCO MGIEP, we recognize the urgent need for Social Emotional Learning (SEL) to be mainstreamed into education systems to transform education and shape a future that is geared towards providing peace and human flourishing. SEL can be described as learning that allows all learners to identify and navigate emotions, practice mindful engagement and exhibit prosocial behaviour for human flourishing towards a peaceful and sustainable planet."

The confident, earnest, and concerned verbiage is typical of all these groups. Here UNESCO promotes SEL in order to implement social justice in Columbia of all places:

"Discriminatory mindsets are the root cause of human rights violations and injustices across boundaries. Inequality has long-lasting consequences for individuals and communities.Post-pandemic, mental health challenges, especially for vulnerable children, are crucial. Our education and health systems must address this need. To tackle these urgent problems, SEL for wellbeing and social justice must be taught in classrooms. Think Equal is a socio-emotional education programme for Early Childhood that promotes prosocial behaviors and reduces antisocial behaviors."

This is a global plan. It is not and never has been local. Our local school districts are either profoundly ignorant or willing participants in this grand scheme to bring authoritarian control to our local communities. Neither is preferable.

Here is DESE's "Portrait of a Gifted Learner." Sound familiar?

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Parents, grandparents and taxpayers must get involved, get educated about these programs, and petition their local school boards. Get your school board and school administration up-to-speed. Give them the information you have learned about. Don't let them tell you that POG is harmless. There are plenty of links here to get educated about SEL's POG. Attend your monthly school board meeting and speak about POG. Educate the board. Make them accountable through publicizing what is going on and asking them to drop SEL programs from their school curriculum.

You trust your children to be taught reading, writing, arithmetic, history, science and so on. To find out that they are being taught instead how to be dependable, adaptable, and empathetic so they can exhibit social skills that employers and authoritarians desire, is not what taxpayers and parents are paying for. 

It is, in fact, intolerable.

 

Fairy tales, indeed

 

 David Rice seems to have found that it's a fairy tale to believe your school is not infected with gender ideology. Go here to see the video...and how it was edited to exclude the transgender "Mama Bear."

Just like the Christian County Library is infected with gender ideology books for tots, so apparently the Nixa Early Childhood Education Center has its own problem with normalizing this dangerous ideology.

From the article: "Nixa Public Schools is editing videos to hide their support of Transexual ideas in their Early Childhood Education Center."

Parents, do not stand for it. I would highly suggest querying the candidates for school board before April 2, 2024's vote. Ask them if gender ideology should be promoted in the Early Childhood Education Center. Ask them how they would handle this situation. Ask them how they will prevent it from happening again.

Arise and Take Charge

“Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.” --Calvin Coolidge 

Register here.

Harvard's Black Swan Event Has Huge Implications For Diversity, Inclusion, Equity

 That Harvard's plagiarist President Claudine Gay was forced to resign in order to stop the credibility bleed at the university, is great news for local government schools. What happens at the university level percolates down to the K-12 educational institutions, as well as business.

DIE, or DEI has been implemented in our local Christian County Schools. Administrators and school boards should expect to be held accountable for its implementation. It's one reason why there is chaos in our schools, whether it is how testing is done, how students are disciplined, how they are taught to feel about themselves and others, and so on. 

On X, Bill Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square, wrote a post about it. He said in part, "But as we all know, our higher education system (HES) is critically important as it can affect and influence the minds of our younger generations, thereby profoundly impacting the lives of all of us. The HES can affect what’s taught to toddlers and what is taught in elementary and high schools, as ed schools train the next generation of teachers and superintendents, and design the curricula they teach. The HES can convince a generation that some of us are oppressors, and others are the oppressed, and provide justifications for what kinds and what degree of violence and terrorism are appropriate tools to address this perceived oppression. The HES can affect our medical establishments and the ethics of medicine, e.g., some of our most controversial procedures and medicines, and the advisability of their use on children, and so on. You get the point, I am sure."

In the short video below, Ayaan Hirsi Ali also discusses how Diversity Inclusion, and Equity can affect local schools, and how important it is that this pernicious agenda be destroyed. The Harvard Black Swan Event is also our opportunity to divest our local schools of DIE. Watch:

Missouri Freedom Initiative Livestream: MSBA

 Right to Win Ozarks joins Patrick Holland and Friends on the Missouri Freedom Inititative livestream:

 

DEI IS Communism

 

DEI is the rebranding of communism. pic.twitter.com/KtgSSwuX9x

— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) December 18, 2023

This is in your school

 

Taking Back Education

 

A courageous mother shares what encourages her to be on the front lines of her kids' education. ft @REVWUTRUTH @tpusafaith pic.twitter.com/ASxriyxoTL

— Turning Point Academy (@tpusaacademy) December 4, 2023

Our Schools are in Trouble

 

Are you done allowing your kindness to be weaponized against you and your family?

Or do we just need more SEL to further drill violent CRT and Trans Cult rhetoric into the minds of children in K-12?#NashvilleManifesto pic.twitter.com/m2NP12ncW1

— Courage Is A Habit (@CourageHabit) November 7, 2023

How to "Unravel" Your School District's Finances: Must Watch

 

 

Right now, the penchant of Missouri school districts to ask for ever-increasing tax dollars while there is little to no correlation between student academic scores and monies spent, is becoming a major issue. In fact there is a move to max out bond capacities in several local school districts in April 2024. 

The Missouri Freedom Initiative has it right. "The elephant in the room that districts don't want exposed is a very clear trend of steadily decreasing attendance in most Missouri school districts." Host Patrick Holland says this will be addressed in future videos.

At seven minutes in a tutorial begins that shows Missourians how to access their school districts financials on the DESE website. More than excellent.

Local Schools are not Locally Governed

 

Over at Ozark Schools Support Team, you will find an analysis of the Missouri School Boards Association's (MSBA) Advocacy Positions for its upcoming annual conference on Nov. 3.

The Delegate Assembly Handbook is a revelation of third-party entity control, including the state and federal governments. The MSBA is a private, non-profit organization, yet it wields immense control over local school districts whose school boards are members of the Association.

The MSBA's advocacy positions push hard for more centralized control of schools. You will read such things as:

"Under Tax Credits on P. 4, the MSBA calls for the capping of "potential reductions of state revenue." They even support suspending "issuance of all tax credits until the statutory funding obligations of the state are met." What do you wanna bet the taxpayer would never see another tax credit implemented?"

And this:

"The MSBA's advocacy positions go on, P. 3. The organization supports giving school districts more options for "raising local revenue, including sales taxes." Yes, they now want a piece of the sales tax pie. I hope local elected officials are aware."

And this:

"In fact, the MSBA thinks school boards should have legal standing when tax abatement programs for residential building projects are considered, to the point that they may "participate in all phases of the process...[and] shall have veto power over their portion of any tax abatement project." 

Go read the shared notes here. You have to read it to believe it.

Just What is DIE? UPDATE

 

 

By Gretchen Garrity

 Been having a back-and-forth with a commenter regarding the terms and meanings of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE) on this post. The latest comment:

"Anonymous October 4, 2023 at 9:33 AM

I apologize if you feel attacked. I was simply asking a question. It's a common battle cry of the magas: "no CRT, no DEI". But when I've actually asked people what those terms mean in relation to education, they don't know! I understand that it's easy to get swept up in rally cries, but shouldn't you at least know what you are crying about?

I don't know why you've mentioned socialism so much. I'm not coming at this from a political angle. It's important for kids to learn why diversity (in thought, background, culture....) is important. You know, since we live in a diverse world. ;)

Equity is simple, everyone should have what they need in order to succeed. For example, I have an autistic grandson who gets to take tests in a quieter classroom with less students. He NEEDS this in order to focus and complete his work.

Inclusion, again, another simple one. ALL kids deserve to be included! For example, the city just recently put in an inclusive playground. This means that even kids with physical disabilities are able to have access. There's even play equipment specifically designed to encourage parents to play and interact with their children.

So there it is. There's the D, E and I "agenda". I am a teacher in the district and I promise you, this is the only "agenda" we are implementing in the classroom. There really is nothing nefarious about it.

I don't know Emily Drabinski so I can't ask her." 

Since posts are moderated after a few days, I thought I would bring it up to the top, so the discussion can go on without that.

I think the issue here is a teacher does not understand what is behind the DIE agenda. Here is a very short video that gives a snapshot of the agenda behind it.

 Perhaps that will give him/her a place to begin understanding what is going on in our schools.

Update:

Here is a visceral video on why DIE must be defeated. Adherents of DIE will say that all children should "see themselves represented" in library books, in the name of diversity and inclusion. This is how they sneak in smut like in the video below. You will be given a million innocent reasons for the DIE agenda, but at the end of the day it's about the demoralization of our children. Warning: GRAPHIC.

GRAPHIC: Watch @SaraGonzalesTX DESTROY @Plano_Schools by reading from a p0*nographic book they offer to minors.

How are administrators ok with this content in their school libraries?? pic.twitter.com/2Nca1ML9pS

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 4, 2023

Using Kids to Sell a Narrative

 

By Gretchen Garrity

Nixa student group pushes "banned" books

In August, education reporter Claudette Riley of the Springfield News-Leader, teased her readers with a tweet from X (formerly Twitter) about some local students who had "reached out" to her.

Met tonight with a group of high school students for an upcoming story. They were articulate, passionate and interesting. So happy they reached out. pic.twitter.com/8LpQLrTCHB

— Claudette Riley (@CRileyNL) August 15, 2023

Back in June 2023, after months of citizen interface with the Nixa School Board about sexually explicit and pornographic books available to students, the school board voted to remove four books from the school library. Later, another book was retained.

Groups like U-Turn in Education, positively featured by Riley in an October 2022 article, have been active in working to prevent the removal of obscene and pornographic books from school and public libraries. In fact, U-Turn is heavily involved in the student group featured in Riley's article.

The teaser tweet finally came to fruition Sept. 27 in an article titled 'It's not their library.' Nixa High School students form group to fight book ban attempts.'

'It's not their library.' Nixa High School students form group to fight future book ban attempts from parents, community members. https://t.co/AK0Dfb2LfY via @springfieldNL @nixaschools @PENamerica #BannedBooksWeek

— Claudette Riley (@CRileyNL) September 27, 2023

 According to the article, a group of little Lord and Lady Fauntleroys has been fighting valiantly against  devilish parents that are attempting to keep literature out of their hearts and minds. The students are described as "calm" and "reasonable" while adults called the school board "names and made ugly comments leveled at students, other adults and high school librarians."

(As an aside, Nixa School Board President Josh Roberts may want to clarify his comments. He is surely not aware of everything that goes on in the school board meetings, since he sits apart from citizens.)

Nixa student group links to Marxist bookstore

This type of accusation is a common tactic of the Left, and has been in play in articles about our local area for months now. In several articles, children are being put on the front lines of the battle for parental rights. It can't be about smut in our schools. It can't be about protecting children or letting parents decide what books their children will be exposed to. It has to be about mean adults taking away a child's right to read.

See here and here and here. Once you see the tactics, you can't unsee it. The latest article in the News-Leader is ramping up the narrative.

 

U-Turn in Education linked from Nixa student group

Thankfully, few citizens are buying what they're selling. And if you want to find out what U-Turn in Education thinks about parent rights, go here to see how they subvert them.

In fact, at least one of the four founding members of the student group, Nixa Students Against Book Restrictions, has parents involved in U-Turn. And U-Turn is linked at the top of the SABR Instagram page. 

For some intelligent commentary about the article, Nick Reed featured it on his show The Nick Reed Podcast on 104.1 KSGF. And for a little humor:

@right2winozarks

♬ Funny - Gold-Tiger

Nixa School Board Vote Results in Book Retention

 

 

School board retains "Unpregnant"

 

 

By Gretchen Garrity

 The issue of inappropriate, sexually explicit and obscene books continues to be at the forefront of local school boards in Missouri. At the July 13, 2023 regular school board meeting in Nixa, the board conducted a re-vote for the book Unpregnant, since it had not received a majority vote of “Remove” at the June 20, 2023 meeting.

The June vote resulted in a split: 3 for removal, 2 for restriction, and 2 for retention. Board rules dictate a clear majority must prevail. However, the July re-vote was more than surprising. Because school board member Linda Daughtery was out of town and unable to attend the regular school board meeting on July 13, 2023, the re-vote to determine a board majority vote for the book consisted of six members voting on the three options.

If Daughtery had been present, the vote would have resulted in Unpregnant being removed from the library by a majority vote of four to three. Jason Massengale changed his vote to “Remove” at the July 13 meeting.

But because of the missing board member and multiple voting options, a majority of the board was again not achieved. The stated goal of having a “Vote to Determine Board Majority” was not served, and the school board ultimately fell back on a review committee’s recommendation, which was to retain the book without restriction.

This happened despite a planned board retreat meeting in June to study the process of reviewing books.

Part of the issue for the school board is the manner of having three options for each book:

1. To Retain without Restrictions

2. To Retain with Parental Permission

3. To Remove

This had a direct result of splitting the vote both times in such a way that a majority vote of 4/7 could not be attained, even though with a vote of 3-2-2 or 3-2-1 as happened at the July 13 meeting, there were more votes to remove or restrict rather than retain. This will be a problem going forward, and may result in school board-appointed committees determining book decisions, rather than elected board members.

The review committee that voted to recommend Unpregnant be retained without restriction includes at least three school district employees: Cheryl Huson, Chelsea Shoemake, Wendee Corya, and a community member, Ashley Johnson. Their vote was 4-0, with one member of the five-member committee not present.

School board president, Joshua Roberts, indicated in a previous news article, that review teams have been ridiculed publicly for their recommendations. Taxpayers, however, have a legal right to know who is making the decisions that affect public school students.

The committee’s report stated in part, “This book in no way promotes or advocates for abortion. The novel manages to take a highly stigmatized topic and bring it into the light, and in the process create a story that is both timely and meaningful. We recommend it be retained without restriction based on its fulfillment of library material selection criteria.”

The report further states the book Unpregnant meets the “Objectives for the Selection of Library Materials” of enriching and supporting the curriculum, as well as meeting ethical standards.

Unpregnant, published by Harper Collins, is a book that came about as a way to make the subject of abortion more comfortable for young people. A review of the book describes it as, “Seventeen-year-old Veronica Clarke never thought she’d want to fail a test—that is, until she finds herself staring at a piece of plastic with two solid pink lines. With a college-bound future now disappearing before her eyes, Veronica considers a decision she never imagined she’d have to make: an abortion. There’s just one catch—the closest place to get one is over nine hundred miles away. With conservative parents, a less-than-optimal boyfriend, and no car, Veronica turns to the only person who won’t judge her: Bailey Butler, a legendary misfit at Jefferson High—and Veronica’s ex-best friend.What could go wrong? Not much, apart from three days of stolen cars, crazed ex-boyfriends, aliens, ferret napping, and the betrayal of a broken friendship that can’t be outrun. Under the starlit skies of the Southwest, Veronica and Bailey discover that sometimes the most important choice is who your friends are.”

Nixa High School

 

 

In a 2020 interview, Unpregnant author Jennie Hendriks said, “Much of the time when abortion has been presented in the media, it’s been focused on the choice—a weighty exploration of whether the person wants to become a parent. And always depicting the decision to have an abortion as fraught and dramatic can lead to feelings of shame. We wanted to write a story where our main character knew exactly what she wanted to do from the very beginning, her only obstacle was how to get there. As writers we never wanted to make light of the decision to get an abortion, but we were more comfortable poking fun at how difficult it is to actually get one...If you are underage, 37 states require parental involvement in the decision to have an abortion. And more laws restricting access are being written seemingly every day. So, to highlight the absurdity of this, we thought, why not write an absurd, boisterous, slightly insane road trip story?”

Nixa parent, Carissa Corson, who submitted a removal request for Unpregnant, spoke about the decision to retain the book without restrictions, “Offering books like "Unpregnant" rob parents of having very important and timely conversations that only parents know when their child is mature enough to have! I believe the board agrees with me and that’s why 5 out of 7 board members either voted to remove or place a parental restriction on this book. Parents, students, taxpayers and our community are feeling that it is unjust to have this book on the shelves of Nixa High School.”

Additional information below.

Video of school board vote on July 13

Nixa School District

Nixa School Board