The JeffCo School Board fiasco Part II

This is Part II of a series of blog posts about the Jefferson County School Board and recent student walkouts.

This month, one of the new "reformist" board members introduced a proposal to have a curriculum review committee and that the committee's first priority would be to revisit the AP History course.

Although many of the student-organized walkouts were based on the AP History portion of this proposal, including what should or shouldn't be taught in history, I am surprised that no one has brought up the process of selecting the committee.

First, I'd like to share an email sent out by a supporters of the board member, Julie Williams, who wants to create this curriculum committee:
 

This is scary. I wonder how this person thinks about the students who attend JeffCo schools. I wonder what Julie Williams thinks about gay students or students who might call themselves progressive. I wonder if the writer of this email thinks gay people are ungodly.

No matter what you think about "reformist" school board members (not just ours but those across the country), I think it's fair to say that they have an agenda. In our case, I truly believe that our school board majority has no interest in all of our students, that they only care about their agenda.

So just say it.

There are plenty of actions that "reformist" board members have taken that show me that they do not care about all students. I wonder what it's like for gay and lesbian students in the district. Or students who live in poverty.

After over a week of student protests, I also wonder how students in JeffCo feel when being called pawns, or that their actions could never have been planned by themselves but had to have been planned by the dreaded union. Newscasters have called them names. Our own board members seem to think that the students cannot critically think for themselves.

This week two high schools closed due to teacher sickouts. There were a couple of student protests but not on the level of last week. The monthly school board meeting is tonight, and the new curriculum is on the docket.

More to come.

Meanwhile, please vote. Please check out your school board.

Thanks for reading.