If there is a silver lining to the Covid shut down at MBUSD during the 2020-2021 school year, it’s that parents (and grandparents) heard what some teachers were saying to their children while attending class from home on their computers.
Infused in math, science, history, and other subjects was a Far Left diatribe by some instructors on “white privilege” and how over a hundred pronouns to describe “sexual orientations” will be required for memorization and used in the classroom.
Were these just a few rogue teachers way overstepping their bounds? Turns out…no.
PARENTS UNINTENTIONALLY OPENED PANDORA’S BOX:
Parents emailed the board and superintendent with their concerns and expected that they would be addressed and quickly resolved. However, after repeated letters, then phone calls, and eventually public comments made at school board meetings, it became obvious that parents were being ignored and sidelined.
Word spread in the community and the crowd at the school board meetings last fall began to grow. Residents whose children attended and since graduated from MBUSD joined the others, all wanting answers to questions the leaders were clearly avoiding.
Parents got organized and created a network of residents working together to publish an email about the current goings-on at the school board. WeTheParentsMB@gmail.com (WTPMB) started in the fall with less than 75 residents and currently has hundreds of MB residents in its network. Click their email link to subscribe.
Parents organizing and writing informative emails to the community about the school board's behavior broke the board’s silence.
On October 6, 2021, then Board President Jennifer Fenton addressed the crowd at a board meeting (albeit the residents were outside of the building during covid watching the meeting on a TV monitor while the board, superintendent, and staff were inside). Her authoritarian response startled most residents as it was not what one would expect from a School Board President to parents with children in the school district.
Instead of apologizing to the parents for their treatment by the board and ensuring that their concerns and those of their children would be addressed, Ms. Fenton verbally chastised the parents, accusing them of being, among other things, “dissenters.” A recording of her speech can be found on the MBUSD website.
Dissenters? Dissenters of what exactly? Is the board accusing these parents of dissenting from some master plan by the district to push “white privilege” and “sexual orientation” content in the classrooms?
Chastising quickly turned into intimidation when an MB father, mother, and grandmother (all from different families), spoke out publically in the online publication Red State, and the board mailed each of them a Cease and Desist letter in an attempt to silence them.
It didn’t silence them.
Clearly, the goings-on in the district needed a much closer look, and they got busy.
THE PARENT GROUP SPEAKS UP FOR THE CHILDREN:
If the board was willing to silence parents, what were they silencing from the kids in the classroom? WTPMB focused on being the voice for them.
Students and parents now had a “safe space” to go and share their stories about what is taking place with their teachers. The fear parents have of retribution against their children or receiving an intimidating legal letter by this board is very real.
Many stories were uncovered. They were published collaboratively with SouthbayEducationAlliance.org on a 2-sided flyer that was hand-delivered by residents to over 10,500 MB homes in March. The stories were shocking and heartbreaking, and they caused a stir in the community.
STORIES OF TARGETING OUR KIDS WITH SEXUALLY LEWD BOOKS AND RACIST ASSIGNMENTS:
A 9th grade English teacher displayed the book Gender Queer on his classroom desk, allowing students to look at the comic book pictures of a young teen girl daydreaming she is a gay boy, with male genitals and having sex with a boy. The book goes on to illustrate how the girl wore a holster with a male prosthetic to have oral sex with a boy.
The overarching theme of the book is to normalize not just the sexualization of children, but the sexualization of children in lewd sexual acts.
The instructor made access to this book readily available to the students by providing an internet link.
When parents alerted the Mira Costa High School principal Karina Gerger to the pornography in the classroom (she is responsible for the education and protection of students in grades 9-12), Ms. Gerger responded that the term pornography is “subjective” and means different things to different people. She did nothing.
When two parents and a Grandfather (again from different families) met with members of the school board and the superintendent about the book, they passed around a copy of one of the most egregious illustrations, asked that the teacher’s behavior be addressed and the book be removed from the school district web site.
Not one of them appeared alarmed or gave any assurance to the parents that the issue would be addressed. Complicity eminated from their silence.
Scan the following QR code to go to the referenced illustrations.
Other books were discovered that are racially and sexually charged, contain profanity throughout, or push the Far Left mantra of “America is a racist country, we hate it and so should you.”
Reading the book This Book is AntiRacist: 20 lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action and Do The Work was required. The teacher then told students to “deconstruct your ‘identity’ and write about your privileges.”
Racist lessons include telling students they have “white privilege” and to write an essay on why it’s true that “white people and police officers need to become more comfortable kneeling for all they have done.”
THE SEXUALIZATION OF OUR CHILDREN AND SHAMING THEM FOR THEIR SKIN COLOR IS ABUSE:
As of this writing, to our knowledge, the school board and superintendent have not attempted to reach out to parents, students, or to WTPMB to inquire about these new stories brought forth.
No mass email to the parents welcoming their stories with an open door. No letters were mailed to alert the parents that the board is addressing an issue brought to their attention. No inquiry or investigations by the board of the students’ accounts. No interest by the board or superintendent to resolve these issues.
However, Superintendent Bowes did post a document on the MBUSD website attempting to discredit all accounts made by the parents and students. The very person who is paid by the residents of Manhattan Beach to protect our students decided instead to write a document to the community publically denying all accounts. Fact vs Rumor.
The denial of abusive behavior and dismissing the victim happens all too often, especially by adults and institutions in authority over women and children. They either turn a blind eye or are complicit in the abuse itself (#MeToo).
All of the parents and students, who had nothing personal to gain but everything to lose by sharing their stories over the last year, had a right to have their accounts investigated by those in charge of protecting them in our Manhattan Beach schools.
Superintendent John Bowes and all of the School Board Members have failed our children and families in the worst way possible.
Ms. Cochran, Fenton, and Peel’s positions are all up for election in November.
Manhattan Beach residents, from moderate Democrats to conservative Republicans and to every political preference in between, must elect 3 NON-FAR LEFT School Board Members who will clean up our district from the top down.
WE NEED 3 NEW BOARD MEMBERS WHO WILL MAKE THE NECESSARY CHANGES TO BRING THE FOCUS BACK ON ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE IN OUR MANHATTAN BEACH SCHOOLS:
