Video of the Day – Watch as Florida Parents are Treated Like Children for Questioning School Curriculum

Screen Shot 2015-02-24 at 5.48.00 PMDavid Bolduc, a Liberty Blitzkrieg reader who is a resident of Naples, Florida recently sent me a note highlighting a video in which he, and several other concerned parents, were reprimanded and treated like little children in a School Board Workshop as a result of them expressing concerns about school curriculum.

In order to give you some background on the issue, see the Letter to the Editor he wrote to the Naples Daily News on 1/28 to say what he was prevented from saying at the 1/20 School Board Workshop. Letter reprinted below:

Patton the cause

The controversy behind the recent parents’ review of school textbooks lays squarely at the feet of Superintendent Kamela Patton.

Specifically, Collier County School Board Policy 2240 reads, “Furthermore, the Superintendent shall prepare administrative procedures detailing the manner in which students and parents will be adequately informed, each year, regarding their right to inspect instructional materials, and the procedure for completing such an inspection.”

By failing to prepare procedures to implement Board Policy 2240, Patton created the perception the textbook review was a nighttime Watergate-style break-in masterminded by conservative political operative and School Board member G. Gordon Lichter.

I examined seventh-grade “Civics in Practice” and it contained numerous factual inaccuracies. For example, on Page 100 it states, “The Constitution can be changed in two ways; formally by Amendment, and informally by Government.” This notion of dictatorship is enhanced by eighth-grade textbook “United States History,” which states on Page 185, “The President issues Executive Orders. These commands have the power of law.”

While some called us book-burning Nazis, Page 274 of “Civics in Practice” states, “Citizens must be alert to propaganda” and glittering generalities is a “type of propaganda which often uses words such as freedom and patriotism.” This world government indoctrination is augmented on Page 425, where a geographical map of North America eliminates the United States, and places our great nation in nine new “cultural nations.”

For pointing this out, one public speaker at the School Board textbook workshop called us “narrow-minded, racist Bible-thumpers.”

Thank you, Superintendent Patton.

David has assured me that there is absolutely zero racist or religious angle to any of his concerns, and that this is being shamelessly injected into the argument due to an inability to debate the actual concerns.

*As a disclaimer, I am not well versed in the intricacies of this debate, nor have I personally reviewed Collier County school materials. I welcome and encourage open debate in the comment section.

Without further ado, take a look at how contemptuously and dismissively these parents’ concerns are dealt with at the Collier Country School Board Workshop.

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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12 thoughts on “Video of the Day – Watch as Florida Parents are Treated Like Children for Questioning School Curriculum”

  1. I have seen the materials at the high school level for US History, and the books do not cite original sources, nor contain a bibliography. It is one long opinion piece that is anti-American. It is a history littered with the ‘victims’ of capitalism, sexism, racism and bigotry. I refused to let my child take the class after looking carefully through the book. The US AP History is the same thing, only on steroids! The US Government book has 2 pages comparing Capitalism and Socialism, and the way it is presented, most teenagers would definitely choose Socialism…it’s portrayed as being fairer.

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  2. This is just a MINOR example of what is taking place at our school board meetings.
    Parents are being told that the teachers and the school board are the primary educators and not accountable to the parents.
    As a grandparent , I have become involved and urge all parents and grandparents to come out to these meetings. They are a fiasco.
    We as parents, and concerned public need to step up and be heard.

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  3. This is another reason why the public school system can’t be reformed. The only solution to education is the complete separation between school and state. With free market schooling or home schooling there can be liberal schools, neoconservative schools, paleoconservative schools and libertarian schools.

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  4. The real question is, are the school board members who participated in this outrage going to be voted out of office? Or maybe even recalled before their terms are over?

    Naples, Florida schools are controlled by the Collier County Schools Department. The five members of the Collier County School Board are:

    Kathleen Curatolo, School Board Chairwoman, (email: [email protected]), whose term expires in November 2016;

    Julie Sprague, School Board Vice Chairwoman, (email: [email protected]), whose term expires in November 2016;

    Kelly Lichter ([email protected]), whose term expires in November 2018;

    Erika Donalds (email: [email protected]), whose term expires in November 2018; and

    Roy M. Terry (email: [email protected]), whose term expires in November 2018.

    The Collier County Schools superintendent is Dr. Kamela Patton (email: [email protected]).

    Kathleen Curatolo, Julie Sprague, Kelly Lichter, Erika Donalds, and Roy Terry mistreated parents and disregarded their views because they regard those parents as stupid, weak, and unable to do anything about it. Dr. Kamela Patton does what she does because she believes her position is secure and the dissenting parents cannot affect her financially (Dr. Kamela Patton’s current annual base salary is $214,000).

    Ok, so what are the voters going to do? Are they going to organize, rally behind reform candidates, and replace Kathleen Curatolo, Julie Sprague, Kelly Lichter, Erika Donalds, and Roy Terry? And will the new members of the Collier County Schools Department then replace Dr. Kamela Patton?

    Don’t act the way Kathleen Curatolo, Julie Sprague, Kelly Lichter, Erika Donalds, Roy Terry, and Dr. Kamela Patton expect you to act. Show them that there are consequences for their actions.

    Reply

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