Teacher quits school publicly

[PartyofPun]

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/teacher-quits-virginia-school-transgender-b1900965.html

This may have been posted elsewhere.

A teacher has publicly quit a school in Virginia in protest at the schools transgender policy. The quote focuses on her religious beliefs which is a bit of a shame because her message is clearly that this ideology is harming vulnerable children. She is clearly highly principled and concerned.

I think it’s a slightly (slightly?) more balanced piece from the independent for once.

I saw this on a reddit sub that celebrates people losing their jobs r/byebyejob or something similar. I track who gets cancelled and how strong the evidence is against that person.
The school situation in the US is in a crisis. The political landscape is so much more complicated because you have to factor in the evangelical Christians, Abortion rights, and Trump running again.
All that said, I live in the UK but I am an American that votes in Virginia. I used to vote Dem without question. I am currently visiting family and popped over to sign my name to the recall initiative. My number 1 priority is recalling this school board. They are totally out of control. The children haven't been in school, they are preaching politics, they are seeped in queer theory and critical race theory. They are calling everyone that objects White Supremacist agitators. I'm on left and I'm not ok with it.

The policies sweeping across schools, government and so on are completely at odds with Christian belief. And I honestly don't think people of faith are given enough or even any consideration, except on this board where the needs of women of faith to spaces away from men are often centred. Often they get waived away as if of no consequence, but to people of faith, they are of a great deal of consequence.

People in general won't care to hear it, but gender ideology is utterly anti-Christian and in fact, in Catholic doctrine, would be considered satanic. It is impossible for practicing Christians to promote it and the fact that these policies are so widespread, is putting people of faith into an intolerable situation where they are being forced to comply with something they see as inherently evil and against a God they want to serve. I can fully understand why she quit. I would do the same. Maybe it's simple to see the issue in such black and white terms as good vs. evil, but that is how it is for many practicing Christians.

Gender beliefs should never trump other beliefs but they do.

Ugh religion

Theres more on the school boards decision here

www.dailysignal.com/2021/08/12/virginia-school-board-adopts-transgender-policy-amid-parents-protests/

And further evidence of how US schools are pushing this without public consultation or knowledge

www.dailysignal.com/2021/08/12/im-a-teacher-parents-should-know-that-school-districts-hide-an-ideology-of-unlimited-gender/

Maybe it's simple to see the issue in such black and white terms as good vs. evil, but that is how it is for many practicing Christians.

Gender ideologues also see it as a matter of good and evil. It’s hard to see how this clash will resolve. Currently all faiths seem to be being replaced in public life by gender ideology.

@happydays2345

Ugh religion

People have the right to practise religions whether you personally approve of them or not (and I'm an atheist).

Please, if you have the time, try and watch some of this. It's the Loudon County School Board meeting from Tuesday. Apart from a handful of overly emotional TRA parents, the rest are overwhelmingly against the trans policies. They are incredibly articulate and honest in their objections. They give the board HELL to be honest but I was in awe watching them. Kara Dansky also makes an appearance around 1 hr 50 as well. The spiteful bastards on the board still voted the policies in the next day. Unbelievable. Some of the parents came from a religious POV but most didn't. I respect them regardless.

Thank God I don't live there. I have a friend who does but although I raised it with her recently, she didn't reply and I don't know what to make of it. I'm worried for her 2 girls.

Hope the link works.

happydays2345
Ugh religion 

People have the right to practise religions whether you personally approve of them or not (and I'm an atheist).

I agree with you @ScreamingMeMe

@happydays2345

Ugh religion

My, that's constructive.

Modern European thought, as I understand it, owes a lot to the Christian belief in the sanctity and value of the individual.

And whenever people say, 'Ugh, religion!' I remember who runs the food bank and the credit union in the small town where I live, and who has been the driving force behind the charity which provides after-school care for a mix of children, some of them with complex needs, other with no additional needs at all.

Yeah. The churches, and one especially outstanding elderly lady who is a devout Christian but never, ever forces it down your throat.

Religion, like politics, can be bad. But it doesn't have to be.

Sorry, derail. But I'm so sick of the fashion of doing down religion when the evidence of my own eyes tells another story.

That weasel word 'inclusive' must be challenged, each and every time.

It is not 'inclusive' to exclude females from female spaces so that male people can use them.

There are other words for that. 'Inclusion' is not one of them.

My message got deleted. I am not sure why. It concerned the way that the person quoted at the end of the story said this:

'One parent who identified themselves as transgender at the meeting, said: “I'm encouraging you all to support policies that are inclusive of transgender students and to show your support for transgender students and transgender faculty. This isn’t pseudoscience, this isn’t some sort of ideology. This is people’s lives. This is civil rights.'

I disputed the fact that TRA has anything to do with civil rights, and that invoking that noble political movement, which required enormous bravery and sacrifice from Black people (and some of their non-Black supporters too), is what I consider appropriation of an oppressed minority's suffering and struggle for rights that had been denied them. For this is not about infringing their rights. It is any possible infringement on other people's rights by them that worries us.

So if they wish to be talked to as females instead of males, and be allowed into female spaces while having male or female bodies, that is definitely a safety issue for others, including, in this case, the parents of other children. There are parents who are legitimately concerned that their children may be being enticed into believing they are the opposite sex, even beginning transition, without their consent.

I cantbelieve American parents are going to accept what is happening in their schools.
What parent would agree to place their child in an education system where the child will need a deprogramming session after the end of every school day. Its totally scary and insane.
I cant see how this is going to end, mass home schooling?

Homeschooling is a on the increase in the US, and this and other related issues is a big part of why.

Thread on Twitter about the same changes and how they were brought in in VA County.

twitter.com/kdansky/status/1426252951543336960?s=21

This feels thoroughly dystopian and I find myself wondering who it is who has so much influence. I know the Denton’s document set out the techniques, but the pervasiveness is alarming. Of course, there may be lots of places where it didn’t play out this way, but the only one I’ve seen comments about was Texas, and given that Texas has been ridiculed for teaching Creationism, that brings no comfort at all.

Thread about VA county school policies on GI.

I received an email from an anonymous woman in VA today. I am sharing it here, with permission, with minor clarity edits. (I cannot vouch for its veracity.)

By "piece on Loudoun County," she means a blog post from yesterday.

"I'm not on twitter (my account got locked in 2019 and I deleted it) so I can't contact you that way.

I read Ovarit and I saw your piece about Loudon County and the same thing is happening in Albemarle County VA where we had a school board meeting last night 8/12/21 to vote on the same transgender policy.

In the past parents would get an email with the zoom link to view the meetings but they sent out nothing in advance.

They are using some kind of loophole to keep school board meetings on zoom/Livestream only and NOT available for the public to attend in person. They opened up to public comments on 8/9 and nobody knew about it.

There's a group here called Citizen Care (link not copied) that has gotten some local press but nothing like Loudon County. Our county is 80% white, outside Charlottesville, suburban/rural, central Virginia.

For the record, I am a transplant, mixed-race, from the north. It is a one size fits all policy getting pushed through and we have no voice. The school board, superintendent (Matt Haas) and principals like Beth Costa are all-in for this, and parents have no say.

Everything is woven into the curriculum. Parents are now no longer sent home information about Family Life Education (sex ed) and the opt-out forms.

No opting out, FLE is now tied to SOLs (testing, so kids will have to absorb and parrot back gender stuff in order to pass their state-mandated tests).

Parents have to come into the school during school hours and request to look at them in person.

I am the breadwinner in my family of 4. Going public with my views will cost me because my industry is woke.

I had a slot to speak but chickened out so I tried to get my husband to use my link to comment during the Livestream but it had to be with my email. Anyway, he got kicked off. Most of the comments were critical of the policy which will probably pass anyway.

I am usually much more coherent but I can't contain this feeling of helplessness.

I have two kids in this school system and every day another mother tells me her girl is transing. My son is special needs. We moved to this area for the schools and now we are mired in this. This is all being done by stealth.

Oh that VA county school, it's so 1984. Those poor children. And parents.

I cantbelieve American parents are going to accept what is happening in their schools.

On that note: School Board Meetings Now Being Held In Football Stadiums To Accommodate All The Angry Parents

"I disputed the fact that TRA has anything to do with civil rights, and that invoking that noble political movement, which required enormous bravery and sacrifice from Black people (and some of their non-Black supporters too), is what I consider appropriation of an oppressed minority's suffering and struggle for rights that had been denied them. For this is not about infringing their rights. It is any possible infringement on other people's rights by them that worries us."

THIS is the crux of it. Racism in the US is and always has been a problem. TRAs stole civil rights talking points, so now everyone knows that if you don't defend boys in girls' spaces, you're no better than the KKK.

Then pedantics on the left and shrewd political strategists on the right knowingly set up a fight over Critical Race Theory, a mere theory that should only used as one of several tools to analyze history, and typically at a college or advanced high school level. During the pandemic I listened in on almost all my kids' online history classes because I'm an historian and just love the material. Both of them had veteran teachers who did an excellent job teaching to their grade levels (oldest DD had an advanced 11th grade course). There was no propaganda and no bastardized of any theory.

However, I have seen activists of CRT encroaching into other areas - at a youth meeting on anti-racism (which I support) one white volunteer lectured on slavery. It was complete idiocy based on made-up tales that included some so outlandish a few kids aged 12 questioned her facts. One included, "white Americans invented slavery because they believed in Manifest Destiny." I studied African American history in college, and I never encountered such blatant nonsense as I have from people who are not historians but think they have a right to control how it's taught.

There's only misguided activists in charge in some places and it's a mess.

I also want to add that while I support freedom to practice religion, the US GOP uses evangelical beliefs as a way to harm women in many ways - from sending lesbians to conversion therapy and wishing to deny them parental rights to denying coverage of birth control and punishing women who want abortions. When the argument against boys in girls spaces is predicated on the argument for freedom of religion, it doesn't help women. It would be better if we argued that boys shouldn't be in girls' spaces because it harms women and girls' rights. Those who are religious will be automatically covered.

Oh dear. 🙄

In the US, the Christian extremes and the Gender extremes are built from the same cloth - their beliefs trumps other's rights and they demand their beliefs be encoded into civic life - from public schools to courtrooms. Both ideologies are anti-science and far from how the majority of people want to live their lives. One group wants Purity Balls where girls promise virginity for their father to protect, the other wants children to be raised by Glitter families and sent on a lifetime of medication and surgery. They're both bonkers.

More information about that school and why the teacher might have resigned.

extract

A father who was arrested at a school board meeting in Loudoun, Virginia has come out and revealed that his daughter was brutally sexually assaulted at her school by a male in the girl's washroom.

On June 22,Scott Smith was dragged out of a Loudoun County school board meetingby police after getting into a vocal altercation with board members over theproposed policy that would enshrine the abilityfor students to use whatever bathroom they chose.

The scuffle was caught on tape and went viral shortly after, showing Smith being pulled from the venue in cuffs with a bloody lip.

Smith was ultimtely charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

But disturbing new details are emerging as Smith has come forward to explain what happened that day, and accuse the Loudoun County school board of ignoring his daugher's sexual assault in a girl's restroom at her school.

Smith claims the assault occurred on May 28, in which a 15-year-old boy, allegedly wearing a skirt, entered a girl's bathroom at Stone Bridge High School, where he proceeded to sexually assault Smith’s ninth-grade daughter.

The records are sealed due to the youth's ages, but Smith's attorney, Elizabeth Lancasterrecently spoke to mediaand confirmed that a boy was charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio, related to an incident that day at that school.

“If someone would have sat and listened for thirty seconds to what Scott had to say, they would have been mortified and heartbroken,” Scott’s attorney, Elizabeth Lancaster is quoted as saying.

Smith attended the June 22 meeting and spoke about his daughter's assault, noting that the assailant was able to access the girl's washroom because of the lax gender identity policies.

According to the dais, a school board member painted his claims about student safety as paranoia, stating "Our students do not need to be protected, and they are not in danger ... Do we have assaults in our bathrooms and locker rooms regularly?"

Smith was finally ejected from the school board meeting after a heated exchange with a woman wearing a rainbow heart shirt who allegedly told Smith she "didn't believe" his daughter about her sexual assault.

The woman, since identified as Jackie Schworm, allegedly threatened to "ruin" Smith's plumbing business for claiming his daughter had been sexually assaulted by the trans student. To which Smith replied, "You're a b*tch."

A police officer then quickly moved to seperate the two by pulling on Smith's arm, but that led to a full-on scuffle between them after Smith yanked his arm away. The officer apparently took this as a sign of aggression, and Smith was struck in the face and pulled to the ground before being handcuffed.

Smith was found guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in August, to which he wassentenced to 10 daysin jail, suspended for one year and contingent on good behaviour.

Speaking to The Daily Caller, Scott Smith said the juvinile court which adjudicated his daughter's sexual assault case assured him the rapist had been confined to house arrest at his mother's residence. But that appears to have not been the case after all, as the young man appears have struckagainsince then at another school.

Elizabeth Lancaster has stated that thesamemale youth who was charged with the sexual assault of Smith's daughter in May was also charged just months later with the sexual battery and abduction of another student, this time at Broad Run High School. The incident occurredwhile they were awaitinghis guilty plea to be filed on the charges of assaulting Smith's daughter.

The Loudoun County Sherriff's Officeconfirmed in a statement that on October 6, a 15-year-old boy was charged with sexual battery and abduction after police said he forced a girl into an empty classroom, held her against her will, and touched her inappropriately.

The assailant is now being held at Loudoun County Juvenile Detention Center. His identity cannot be revealed due to the fact he is a minor.

Smith and his attorney have stated that a final conviction for this boy on the charge of his daughter's assault is expected imminently, likely in the form of a plea deal to a charge of felony aggravated sexual battery.

From: 4w.pub/fath-accu-school/amp/

I want to cry reading that. Silencing a man whose daughter has been raped, in order to preserve their sick insistence that boys must be allowed to invade girl’s spaces is about as abhorrent as it gets.

There aren’t really words strong enough to express how I feel.

wow, thanks for that update PurgatoryOfPotholes. Heartbreaking.