Free speech is dying in schools. Ian Prior with America First posted on X that the Loudoun County School Board Chair recently shut down public comment to “combat misinformation.” The Chair claimed that misinformation is rising, and the board must be vigilant in actively combating it. Since COVID, parents have taken to the microphone at Loudon County Public Schools (LCPS) board meetings nationwide to make public comments. Some respectfully, and some in outrage, have sought to hold the governing board accountable for unthinkable, immoral school incidents and an apparent reckless disregard for core academics.
Take, for example, another LCPS board meeting. A female student’s father became agitated about her daughter’s alleged recent assault in the girls’ bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt. When the LCPS Superintendent Scott Ziegler spoke up in response, he asserted that “the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist” and that “we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.” According to Fox News, a judge found the boy guilty, and the father filed a lawsuit against the school.
Suppression of free speech seems to be “in the air,” and it’s frightening to discover that some conservatives, once the bastion of free speech defenders, are taking on an authoritarian posture. School board members have been known to tell community members not to make public comments at their board meetings. Everyone has the right to sign up to make public comments under open meetings law while respecting board protocols and decorum when making comments.
Recently, in North Carolina, after making public comments at a board meeting, Pastor John Amanchukwu was put in handcuffs and escorted out. Amanchukwu travels the country speaking at school board meetings to defend public school kids from dangerous woke culture in the classroom. Maybe in a different style, he did what hundreds or thousands of us nationwide did when making public comments at school board meetings. He asserted that the Board allowing pornographic content and discussions on gender identity in schools was a violation of parental rights.
Free speech may not always be welcomed by the hearer, but we are entitled to our opinions. The freedom to speak up about issues of concern is a hallowed right unique in human history, as expressed in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It safeguards speech in the press, at an assembly, and the right to petition the government from governmental interference. Its protections include what we say and wear on a hat, a T-shirt, a sign, and other symbols. Yes, even at school board meetings.
However, freedom of speech appears to be eroding across the board, including on social media platforms. And this affects all issues of concern, including education. The recent SCOTUS case (Manhattan Community Access Corporation v. Halleck) determined that while freedom of speech applies to federal, state, and local governments, the First Amendment does not govern private entities. That makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that this ruling is being applied to social media platforms. They are exempt from the responsibilities of a publisher. Yet, Facebook and other social media can regulate or restrict speech hosted on their platforms by manipulating algorithms to favor their friends and harm their enemies.
In addition to honestly examining whether our right to free speech is being infringed, we should also determine whether we are operating out of mutual respect when it comes to the free speech of others despite everyday differences of opinion. For example, what is the real reason that the Loudon County Public School Board decided to shut down certain kinds of speech at board meetings? Well, for one thing, in doing so, they are shutting down dissent. Government entity or not, this differs from where we should go as a society.
Tamra Farah has twenty years of experience in public policy and politics, focusing on protecting individual liberty and promoting limited government.
Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) provides just one more example of the radical transformation in school counselors. Once known as the go-to for college and career decisions, the woke movement has leveraged the influence and presence of counselors as tools of indoctrination. I’m sure that sounds harsh and judgmental. And I wish it weren’t true, but it is. Many school counselors include in their approach the sexualization of kids, effectively driving a wedge in families between parent and child by introducing alternative values and morality.
In PUSD, let’s look at Ironwood High School counselors. Ironwoodcounselors is an account on Instagram. These are counselors talking to PUSD kids who attend Ironwood High School. The pictures and related posts are included here, too, unless they get taken down after this is published. If those who impose this stuff on your kids don’t want you to know about it, that is a tell.
Counselors, along with teachers and other school officials, have a decisive influence on students. Parents generally encourage their kids to trust them. Kids typically believe that these people have important things to teach them. This is a blatant abuse of influence and power in the lives of other people’s children.
Take note of the American School Counselor Association logo in the graphic above. Yep. This is not just happening in a few one-off schools. It is a national agenda.
One of these counselors at Ironwood is Paige Carpenter-Swaim. The image below is a screenshot from Instagram; though I cannot find this account now, it is a real picture of a reel.
On February 13, 2024, Ms. Heien, a high school library paraprofessional, emailed Ms. Carpenter-Swaim asking about the Rainbow Library and whether it has been approved for counselors or can be added to the “actual library.” She was told she could apply.
Paige received the email below while procuring the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) Rainbow Library. GLSEN has an agenda to get these books in the hands – and hearts – of your kids in public school.
In another email, we find not only another school counselor expressing an interest in getting the GLSEN books, but also an English Literature and Language Arts Teacher from Peoria High school.
So, what is in this Rainbow Library created by GLSEN? Their stated mission is to “ensure that LGBTQ students are able to learn and grow in a school environment free from bullying and harassment.” Doesn’t that language seem inflammatory and defensive? I think so.
Over 6,700 schools in 33 states participate in GLSEN’s Rainbow Library, reaching over 5 million students. Deep in the GLSEN site, you can find the Rainbow Library “bookstore,” including “The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School”, which is described here:
Sixteen-year-old Yamilet Flores prefers to be known for her killer eyeliner, not for being one of the only Mexican kids at her new, mostly white, very rich Catholic school. But at least here no one knows she’s gay, and Yami intends to keep it that way.
After being outed by her crush and ex-best friend before transferring to Slayton Catholic, Yami has new priorities: keep her brother out of trouble, make her mom proud, and, most importantly, don’t fall in love. Granted, she’s never been great at any of those things, but that’s a problem for Future Yami.
The thing is, it’s hard to fake being straight when Bo, the only openly queer girl at school, is so annoyingly perfect. And smart. And talented. And cute. So cute. Either way, Yami isn’t going to make the same mistake again. If word got back to her mom, she could face a lot worse than rejection. So, she’ll have to start asking, WWSGD: What would a straight girl do?
Told in a captivating voice that is by turns hilarious, vulnerable, and searingly honest, The “Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School” explores the joys and heartaches of living your full truth out loud.
And then there is “Beyond the Gender Binary”.
In “Beyond the Gender Binary,” poet, artist, and LGBTQIA+ rights advocate Alok Vaid-Menon deconstructs, demystifies, and reimagines the gender binary. Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today’s leading activists and artists. In this installment, “Beyond the Gender Binary,” Alok Vaid-Menon challenges the world to see gender not in black and white but in full color. Taking from their own experiences as a gender-nonconforming artist, they show us that gender is a malleable and creative form of expression. The only limit is your imagination.
These are merely a few examples among hundreds of books.
So, what is the impact of the GLSEN Pride Library in Arizona schools? Just last year, Fox News reported that its “Rainbow Library program has encouraged kids to ‘come out’ to teachers: ‘They trust’ them.” That is spin, plain and simple. Consider the dynamics here. Trusted adults are encouraging kids – directly or indirectly – by providing the Rainbow Library. Kids are naturally curious, and the books look enticing, so why not read them, correct? Presto. Kids are trying out the things in the books with the same sex, etc. Any run-of-the-mill psychologist can explain these grooming dynamics. Then, when a student tells their teacher about their “newfound gender” identity, and that teacher affirms them, they are potentially afraid to say to their parents, yeah “they trust” their complicit teachers.
This suggestive agenda to introduce impressionable minds to sexualized information that can lead them down a path that is not in line with their family’s values is unacceptable. Taxpayers pay for public education.
To my point, the Fox News report states that the Rainbow Library program intro on YouTube asserts that they “have the guidance from the safe space kit on what to do when a student comes out to you. We hear time and time again, especially in places where there really are not that many LGBTQ+ supports for youth already, including more rural locations and more conservative areas that, when a teacher or a librarian rolls out the rainbow library in their location, students start coming out to them because they see that adult as someone that they can trust,” Michael Rady, a GLSEN member and educator, said in the video.
Public education aims for kids to become proficient in core academics, not to be indoctrinated in woke cultural ideologies. These books do not belong in schools, and these discussions do not belong in front of the proverbial chalkboard but rather around the family dinner table.
Correction: A previous version of this op-ed stated that another school counselor got the GLSEN books, but this school counselor simply expressed an interest in getting the books. The article has been updated.
Tamra Farah has twenty years of experience in public policy and politics, focusing on protecting individual liberty and promoting limited government. She has worked at the senior director and advisor level for Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, Moms for America, and pregnancy centers. Tamra currently directs the SMART Families Network at Arizona Women of Action.
The author of this opinion piece would like to clarify that the title refers to individuals like Aaron Dunton and does not apply to any other individuals named in this article. In addition, the reference to sexually grooming kids concerns encouraging LGBTQIA gender identity considerations. Further, the mention of sexualizing kids refers specifically to encouraging kids to access the specific library books indicated and not to anything else.
Concerns over sexual grooming in Arizona schools and inappropriate educational agendas have intensified. The use of grooming materials and activities by teachers, the Arizona Education Association (AEA) agenda, and the damning Department of Education’s Enforcement Action report on sexual misconduct in schools are telling.
Not in Our Schools recently outlined concerns over reported misconduct and the promotion of LGBTQ and social justice agendas in Arizona schools. There are also concerns about the growing influence of LGBTQ and social justice agendas in Mesa Public Schools (MPS) through the actions of teachers and organizations like GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network).
Some Mesa teachers reportedly use their roles to promote LGBTQ-related content and activities in the face of new district policies restricting teacher involvement in non-academic clubs. Activities cited by Not in Our Schools also reveal that Mrs. Tami Staas engages in “grooming” students for sexual behaviors and gender transitioning without parental knowledge, using platforms like Synergy to hide information from parents. Mrs. Staas is said to introduce pronouns and LGBTQ+ symbols in her classroom, causing concern among parents.
Not in Our Schools also reports that the AEA prioritizes social agendas over academic achievement and influences school board elections to further these goals. Allegations are made about the AEA’s involvement in supporting abortion access and pushing for laws that promote gender transitioning in schools. Parents must be cautious about the school system and the influence of organizations like the AEA, and should thoroughly research candidates before voting in the upcoming school board elections.
Another concern involves the social-emotional learning (SEL) framework, which is used to push LGBTQ agendas. Programs like “Everybody Matters” indoctrinate students into LGBTQ lifestyles, further eroding parents’ influence in the education system. Additionally, the involvement of organizations like GLSEN and the Arizona School Board Association (ASBA) promotes LGBTQ content and obscures it from parents. Finally, the Mesa Public Schools Governing Board has been called out for supporting programs that weaken family structures and increase LGBTQ influence in schools.
Not only are teachers identified as using sexualizing materials in school, but just a few years ago a flurry of news called out Aaron Dunton, a former teacher at Higley High School in Gilbert, Arizona, who was arrested after a months-long investigation revealed his alleged inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old student. Dunton resigned after the allegations surfaced, having taught at the school since July 2021. During the investigation, another victim accused Dunton of inappropriate incidents in 2019 when he was a teacher at Power Ranch Elementary. The second victim was 11 years old at the time. Dunton was facing multiple charges, including aggravated assault, witness tampering, and contributing to delinquency and dependency, until the Maricopa County District Attorney dropped the charges. Speculation is that there was no law to convict Dunton at the time. Now, there is hope that the anti-grooming law will be implemented soon.
Dunton is just one teacher among many seeking to mistreat students sexually. The Arizona Department of Education 2023 Enforcement Action Report indicates an 184% increase in sexual teacher discipline-related cases from 2012 to 2023. Those are cases that were recognized and resulted in the discipline of perpetrators. Imagine how many more teachers, coaches, and other school officials may go unrecognized as sexual predators of students.
Some consider HB2310, referred to as the Child Enticement Bill or the anti-grooming bill introduced by Representative Travis Grantham, as a tool to prosecute sexual predators like Dunton. HB2310, which will go into effect next month, strengthens protections for children against enticement and grooming. Going into effect next month, the bill makes it a fourth or fifth-degree felony to intentionally lure, solicit, or entice a minor into committing illegal sexual acts or actions that could lead to sexual exploitation or abuse. It also includes provisions for offenses committed through electronic communications. The legislation increases penalties for these crimes, providing better legal protection for children in Arizona.
Beyond respect for this prosecutorial law, the governing boards in Arizona school districts and the Arizona Department of Education are responsible for ensuring guardrails and accountability in schools to protect children. But it doesn’t stop there. Parents are vital in guiding their children to make safe and responsible decisions at school and online. Parents can encourage their children to protect themselves and others, understand harmful behaviors, and report incidents to parents and school officials immediately.
Here are suggested steps parents can advise their kids to take at school:
1. Understand Consent and Boundaries: Encourage your child to be aware of the power they have not to consent and the legal consequences of inappropriate sexual conduct by an adult. Ensure your kids understand that boundaries matter in physical and digital communication. Reinforce this by having regular conversations about consent and why respecting their personal space and boundaries is essential.
2. Be Mindful of Online Behavior: Advise your child to think critically about how they interact online, particularly with social media or text messaging. Teach them never to share personal or explicit content with others and to be cautious when interacting with people they do not know well. They should also understand that even consensual acts, such as sharing inappropriate images, can have severe legal consequences. Parents can support this by discussing the real risks of digital communication and the importance of privacy.
3. Report Suspicious Behavior: Make sure your child knows that if they encounter inappropriate behavior, such as an adult or peer asking them to send inappropriate images or engage in risky sexual acts, they should report it immediately to a trusted adult at school, such as a counselor or teacher, or use an anonymous reporting tool if available. Reinforce that reporting these incidents is crucial for their safety and protecting others from potential harm.
4. Stay Informed About Friendships and Relationships: Parents should encourage their children to surround themselves with friends who respect boundaries and engage in safe, responsible behavior. Advise them to avoid risky situations or peer pressure and to feel confident in saying “no” to uncomfortable requests, whether in person or online. By fostering open communication with your child, you can help them navigate complex social situations and ensure they understand their rights and responsibilities in relationships.
5. Learn About the Law: Encourage your child to become familiar with the legal consequences outlined in the amended Arizona statutes, particularly regarding age differences in relationships and digital safety. Understanding the law can empower them to make responsible choices. Parents can help by discussing the specific legal consequences of child enticement, age proximity laws, and what qualifies as inappropriate behavior.
6. Practice Digital Safety: Advise your child never to share personal passwords, account details, or private information online. Reinforce that they should never engage with unknown people online, especially if the conversation turns inappropriate or uncomfortable.
By teaching children about consent, online safety, reporting suspicious behavior, and advocating for themselves, parents can help them align their actions with appropriate behavior and relationships and create a secure school environment that is in accordance with Arizona’s laws to protect minors.
Tamra Farah has twenty years of experience in public policy and politics, focusing on protecting individual liberty and promoting limited government. She has worked at the senior director and advisor level for Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, Moms for America, and pregnancy centers. Tamra currently directs SMART Families Network at Arizona Women of Action.
The Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) is seeking federal funds to renew the Mental Health Service Professionals (MHSP) Demonstration Grant through the Department of Education (ED). The grant would enable the district to expand its program for unlicensed behavioral health workers. The grant application includes assertions to garner sympathy and support, such as highlighting low student-to-behavioral health worker ratios, funding cuts, and increased student academic issues post-COVID. There is just one problem: the initiative is flawed and poorly justified when scrutinized, raising several critical concerns.
If renewed, the MHSP grant would enable PUSD to hire additional counselors and social workers, asserting that they will assist students deemed to have mental health issues that purportedly hinder academic performance. A primary concern is the qualification of these personnel and the poor track record in this type of intervention in improving academic proficiency.
In a recent Substack piece, Attorney Chris Evans points out that the district refers to the personnel to be hired as “mental health professionals,” which Evans argues is “a title inflation for a person with no license from a professional board, no regulatory oversight, but is certified by the Arizona Department of Education to work in schools with zero scope of practice limitations.” This raises grave concerns about the effectiveness of mental health assistance and the safety of children under the care of these individuals.
PUSD staff and board members persist in claiming that behavioral health services enhance academic outcomes. However, the evidence to support this assertion is lacking. Robust independent research indicates this claim is false and seems to justify seeking federal funds rather than being a fact-based strategy.
For example, a close examination of PUSD academic assessments from 2017-2018 to 2023 reveals minimal improvement over five years in attempting to integrate behavioral health services into its schools; the expected improvements in academic performance have not materialized. During the first grant period, state assessment scores show no significant progress, and in subjects like math, the scores have declined. This stagnation indicates the lack of effectiveness of the rationale for the project’s federal funding and suggests that the behavioral health program has not delivered the promised academic benefits. If these programs cannot demonstrate a clear, positive impact on student achievement, their expansion, and current presence in schools are suspicious.
The ideological motivations behind this push for more behavioral health services cannot be ignored. The emphasis on social justice and equity indicated in the grant application may overshadow the primary goal of educational institutions: to enhance academic achievement. The current approach appears to conflate these objectives, potentially at the expense of educational quality.
The current justification for renewing this grant employed by PUSD is misguided. At the May 29 meeting, board President Becky Proudfit asked the grant administrator if the first grant initiated in 2019 had been effective and what the effect had been on the students in the district. During his response, the administrator admitted that he thinks, “It’s just really important to note that it’s hard to determine the overall success of the grant.” And still, the PUSD board voted 4-1 to renew the Mental Health Service Professionals (MHSP) Demonstration Grant for another five years.
It is time for PUSD to reevaluate its priorities and ensure that any funded programs are accountable and effective. Most importantly, addressing mental health in students is important, yet fundamentally within the authority and responsibility of parents and guardians, not schools.
Tamra Farah has a twenty-year career in public policy and politics. Her role as director and senior advisor at Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and Arizona Women of Action and her expertise in PR and communications demonstrates her ability to create engagement and transformation in her efforts. Tamra has appeared on Fox News, America’s Voice, Newsmax, and Victory Channel and is quoted in major publications like The New York Times and Washington Post.
Progressive educators have dressed up nonacademic social training in different outfits for decades. Still, the goal remains: to use public education to dictate the next generation’s norms and behaviors. This may seem innocent enough, but it’s not.
Early 20th-century education reformers like Edward Thorndike of Columbia Teachers College and John Dewey, the father of American progressive education, set out to refashion public education to diminish individuality and family influence in children. They aimed to replace these influences with a collectivist mindset prepared for the workforce. By doing so, they could capture the minds and hearts of children in the classroom and substitute “the state for the home and faith.”
Their socialist behaviorist model was effectively the first version of what we now know as social-emotional learning (SEL), which was most recently repackaged as the Whole Child educational framework.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In the 1960s, Dr. James Comer of the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center set out to prove the effectiveness of behavior versus academic focus for student success. He tested his theory in 650 low-income schools, admitting thirty years later that it was a failure. Still, his method served as the foundation for today’s SEL in schools.
In the 1980s, Psychology Professor Roger Weissberg aimed to help students “develop positive self-concepts” and hone skills in “self-monitoring” and “values such as personal responsibility and respect for self and others.” These seem like loaded phrases subject to interpretation, but his approach was acceptable enough to keep the behaviorist model train running on its tracks.
By the 1990s, National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE) president Marc Tucker helped pass the Goals 2000 Educate America Act during the Clinton administration, echoing Thorndike’s goals to advance a socialist workforce development mindset in K-12 education. This was followed by the controversial Outcomes Based Education (OBE) model, which debuted when my kids were school age.
Thankfully, parental backlash in the 1990s squashed OBE, yet it morphed and reappeared through CASEL, the Collaborative to Advance Social and Emotional Learning. CASEL took time to stake its claim by hosting conferences and sponsoring research, presumably to build a support base. CASEL’s champion, Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford Graduate School of Education, was a known progressive who advocated for educational equity. The push for so-called equity, versus the much-respected American concept of equal opportunity, hit schools long before COVID.
CASEL’s goals for students include providing “the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.” This sounds innocuous until you realize their specific definitions for each element may be a far cry from what you might think.
For example, CASEL definitively overplays the role of schools in a child’s life when it asserts that “schools have an important role to play in raising healthy children by fostering not only their cognitive development but also their social and emotional development.” (Emphasis is mine.) This is a tremendous assumption of power over your children in the classroom and is tantamount to brainwashing, not promoting basic good behavior.
CASEL defends its emphasis on social and emotional learning via research that leaves something to be desired. First, there are no recent U.S.-based studies; instead, they cite a 2006 study that asked a national sample of 148,189 sixth through twelfth-grade students if they thought they had social competencies such as empathy, decision-making, and conflict-resolution skills. The results? Only 29% indicated that their school provided a caring, encouraging environment. And how accurate are the results when parents were not consulted on the answers, given the relative immaturity of kids to answer these questions competently?
The latest version of SEL, dubbed Whole Child, stems from The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. It includes expansive elements in its list of critical areas for schools to deliver to students: mental health, cognitive development, social-emotional development, identity development, academic development, and physical health. This resembles a giant leap toward Thorndike and Dewey’s early progressive education agenda.
According to research from the Massachusetts-based think tank Pioneer, Thorndike equated “learning with training” and believed in learning by conditioning. Like Pavlov’s dogs, children could be conditioned to exhibit the desired behaviors by a system of positive or negative consequences linked to actions. John Dewey, the dean of American progressive education, was equally enthusiastic about manipulating the psychological aspects of learning to manipulate the child.
Remember, Dewey favored the “educational potential of social behaviorism used in totalitarian societies” since those societies “required a collective and cooperative mentality.”
Pioneer’s conclusion? “Carried to its logical conclusion, SEL can replace parental influence with the ultimate nanny state.” Progressives have dressed up the nonacademic paradigm of social-emotional style learning in different outfits for decades. They have planned to substitute “the state for the home and faith” and replace individual liberty with a collectivist mindset readied for the “workforce.”
Social Emotional Learning, in its “transformative” form, promotes “justice-oriented civic engagement” to make your kids into activists or “social justice warriors.” Black Lives Matter has often invited schools over the last few years to engage in that process.
A hallmark of SEL’s manipulative approach is the use of student surveys. The surveys are sent to kids’ email inboxes, often asking questions of students that require parental consent according to federal law. SEL puts teachers in a mindset to pry into the lives of students and families. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said social and emotional learning programs shift “the role of teachers from educators to therapists.”
SEL is also big business. According to Education Week, nationwide sales of social and emotional learning materials shot up 45% in a year and a half to $765 million in 2021. Soon after, Attorney General Merrick Garland asked the FBI to investigate parents protesting social and emotional learning issues at SB meetings. It just so happens that Garland’s son-in-law co-founded Panorama Education, a company raking in millions selling social and emotional learning materials to school districts.
Don’t be fooled by social-emotional learning as your child’s education framework. It is not founded on academics and pushes your kids toward an activist mindset that may not align with your family’s values. The Scottsdale Unified School District’s governing board recently approved a new social-emotional learning curriculum called Second Step. For help discovering SEL’s impact on your kids at school, contact education@azwomenofaction.com for information and steps you can take.
Tamra Farah has a twenty-year career in public policy and politics. Her role as director and senior advisor at Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and Arizona Women of Action and her expertise in PR and communications demonstrate her ability to create engagement and transformation in her efforts. Tamra has appeared on Fox News, America’s Voice, Newsmax, and Victory Channel and quoted in major publications like The New York Times and Washington Post.
