On a regular basis, we will be publishing letters from residents to residents in the edition we call “MB Residents Speak…” If you have information or an opinion, and you would like to share it with your MB neighbors, please email your letter to MBStrong2021@gmail.com.
For a yard sign, email WeTheParentsMB@gmail.com
A must-watch 1-minute video.
A senior resident/MBUSD parent posts a video message to fellow MB residents!
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To our many special neighbors,
It is great to see many voters in Manhattan Beach actively fighting back against the gradual progressive drift in our city’s policies and schools. I just turned 70, have been a resident of MB since 1974, and love this little beach enclave and our lifestyle here. My guess is most of you do too!
Even though my wife and I can file a Senior Citizen Exemption and avoid the new $1,095 parcel tax if it passes on June 7, we will vote NO on Measure A for the reasons already cited by those who are following this story more carefully than we are.
Our big family, spanning four generations, faces what will be over the next 12 years a tax increase on our homes of $41,760, absent the impact of inflation. And where will that money go? To fund a school district whose leadership, based on what we read and hear, believes our schools should espouse cultural and social beliefs that we believe rightly belong and should be taught, in our town’s homes – by the parents!
Our schools ought to be the domain of superb education in the basics, and when it comes to anything “political” ought to encourage students to look at things from all angles, engage in healthy debate, and respect and give priority to what they learn in their families. We know that our viewpoint isn’t universally popular and means a small percentage of kids may be worse off than they would be under the “safe” umbrella of their school. But, the scale has shifted way too far toward handing over to our schools the responsibility to teach values that should be taught in the home and not counteracted during the many hours our kids spend in school.
My wife and I haven’t voted with our feet yet because our families’ roots are here in Manhattan Beach, and because we believe we can continually contribute to what’s good and right about our town.
~Most respectfully submitted to MBStrong - residents for 48 years
Dear MB Residents,
I don’t want these funds. Our current school board is on a strong push with a divisive, woke agenda (see below). The only initiatives I see our Board actively advancing are those of the EDSJI committee. Those initiatives are not directed at academic excellence, but rather at dismantling it.
If you closely follow the EDSJI movement at MBUSD, it rapidly expanded while all of our kids were at home for well over a year. Our Board and administrators should have been moving mountains to get our kids back into classrooms or improve remote learning. Instead, they met regularly to advance social justice causes. Our Superintendent of MB Schools sent around a communication referencing the “brutal murder of Breonna Taylor” (never mind that no murder charges were ever filed or pending in her case) as he wrote, “we have a responsibility to actively oppose racism.”
Then our school community underwent a costly “racism and equity audit” with seriously inappropriate and manipulative polling of our children. Thankfully, the 2021 CLEAR Equity Audit used as the foundation to form the EDSJI committee, found no racism and no discrimination in our community. That should have been the end of that. Instead, this expensive, canned “report” still served as the foundation to form our EDSJI “Action Plan” because, you know, an inequity could happen. The Action Plan is a MUST read and you can find it on the MBUSD website. It makes little sense and would be impossible to monitor. It would cost a fortune to implement. Here are some tidbits:
Teachers and staff undergo professional development in “inclusionary practices”
Update instructional materials to include “culturally competent content” to “portray equitably across lines of difference”
Purchase curricula and books reflecting all cultures
Develop “Ethnic Studies” content
Update handbooks, and complaint procedures to reflect equity indicators and “reporting.” “Develop measures to determine whether stakeholders access and utilize these tools”
“Expand recruiting practices to further promote diverse applicant pools”
“How can we design flexible assessments so there will be multiple options for our students to demonstrate that they are learning…?”
If students do not learn, what potential barriers can be thoughtfully eliminated?
Provide choices for students to be agents of change and to explore their self-identity.
All subject areas to have supplement resources that represent diversity within what is taught in the classroom.
Enhance library collections.
Adopt History-Social Science in elementary and secondary school. Implement a revised curriculum.
While this push is underway, our enrollment is on a steep decline. Parents are opting for homeschooling or for private schools, and they make clear why they are leaving.
Our schools are moving away from what we ask of them: academic excellence. I would gladly support a massive parcel tax if I knew what it would be used for and if it aligned with what I asked of our schools. These funds will likely serve to erode our history of academic excellence.
Within the walls of our homes, we raise children to be colorblind, compassionate, and giving. We pay dearly to live in a community that is sophisticated, tolerant, and welcoming. We ask nothing of MBUSD in any of those categories. It is a parental right and responsibility to instill values in their children. MBUSD: Leave us alone.
-MB Resident and Parent
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