Search

ROPE Report

Open Search
Month

February 2023

Do Parent Involvement Policies Align with the Parents’ Bill of Rights?

By Dayna Mooney, Chapter Chair, Moms for Liberty Canadian County

Oklahoma’s Parents’ Bill of Rights defines a “parent” as the natural or adoptive parent or legal guardian of a minor child who makes decisions in the best interest of that child. (Source: https://law.justia.com/codes/oklahoma/2014/title-25/section-25-2002/)

 It goes on to say “All parental rights are reserved to a parent of a minor child without obstruction or interference from this state, any political subdivision of this state, any other governmental entity or any other institution, including, but not limited to, the following rights:

1. The right to direct the education of the minor child;

2. All rights of parents identified in Title 70 of the Oklahoma Statutes, including the right to access and review all school records relating to the minor child;

3. The right to direct the upbringing of the minor child;

4. The right to direct the moral or religious training of the minor child;….”

The Parents’ Bill of Rights does not give any school district or school personnel the right to direct the education of any minor child. The Bill of Rights directs that the parents are involved.

The Parents’ Bill of Rights is important because on Monday, February 13th @ 6pm, the Mustang Public Schools Board of Education will decide whether or not to approve two new policies.

  1. Policy # 2146 – Parent and Family Engagement (Note: At the time of this article the policy was not available for review on the website. An email has been sent to the Board and the Superintendent requesting the policy for review. Neither have responded.)
  2. Policy # 2147 – Site Parent and Family Engagement Policy (i.e. School Visitors in the Policy Handbook) https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1668702225/mustangpsorg/kyehs4gpb5yugsgvlhhb/MPSPoliciesandProcedures.pdf This policy is available on page 167.

Policy #2147- Site Parent and Family Engagement Policy (i.e. School Visitors in the Policy Handbook), a section from this policy states:

“The superintendent or principal of any school shall have the authority to order any person out of the school building and off the school property when it appears that the presence of such person is a threat to the peaceful conduct of school business, school activities, and/or school classes. This authority shall extend to the removal of any individual attending an official school activity or field trip where students are present, including an activity or field trip not on school property, when the superintendent or principal determines that a threat to the peaceful conduct of students exists. Any person who refuses to leave the school building or grounds after being ordered to do so by the superintendent or principal, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine of not more than $500.00 or by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than 90 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment…Any person who is requested to leave the premises shall be considered for a six-month removal period.”

Could a parent be deemed a threat to the peaceful conduct of school business, activities and/or classes for asking questions that the school and/or district chooses not to disclose or speaking out against the school’s mission and values? Why are the superintendent and/or principal the only decision makers on who is considered a threat? The Superintendent stated during the November 14, 2022 Board of Education meeting “this one cleans up wording of a previous policy and makes it easier to follow”.

After researching #2146 and #2147, the search led to Policy # 2145 – Parent Involvement Policy on page 165, which is already in place. The policy discusses district expectations and parent expectations. While the district expectations are only eight bullets long, the parent expectations are nearly double. A couple of parent expectations that stand out are 1) “participating in the development of the school parent involvement plan and the review and evaluation of the plan” and 2) “valuing diversity and the need for equity in each child’s learning”.  To address the first expectation, parents haven’t been given sufficient time to review or become involved in the creation and evaluation of the plan. In addition, the Board of Education hasn’t educated parents about their rights. As for the requirement that parents need to adopt DEI to be involved, through who’s lens is Diversity and Equity being taught? What is being taught? Does it align with your family’s values? If it doesn’t, does that mean you are unable to be involved with your child’s education?

Along the same lines as “parent involvement”, the Board of Education and the Mustang Public Schools Administration does not appear to value family because they insert their own opinions about the curriculum to be taught. One such curriculum is the 7 Mindsets which is a Social Emotional Learning program (SEL). SEL programs teach our children that the morals, values and traditions in our families are wrong. Per the 7 Mindsets book, when we tell our children “Money doesn’t grow on trees” we are causing emotional scarring to our children. (Source: The 7 Mindsets To Live Your Ultimate Life)

There is so much happening in our school district that parents are not aware of until it is too late.

We are calling all parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings, and community members to jump into action and be proactive. Get involved in your child’s school, find a local advocacy group to work with and ask questions when your gut tells you something is off. Don’t take the school administration’s word for it, do your own independent research. YOU MUST TAKE ACTION TO SAVE OUR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION! You are your child’s advocate.

Takeaway: District Parent Involvement Plans/Policies DO NOT align with the Parents’ Bill of Rights!

1

Governor Stitt Says He Wants Oklahoma To Be More Like The Voucher States Of Iowa, Virginia, Florida and New Hampshire Where Homeschooling Is Significantly More Restricted Than Oklahoma

To hear the Voucher cabal talking, you find out a couple things quickly;

  1. there is simply no downside to private school vouchers and
  2. long-time homeschoolers or private schoolers don’t seem to be part of the discussion.

Why?

Probably because, like most things that vastly enlarge the imprint of government, the effects of any government program are far downstream from the initial creation – it’s the frog in the boiling pot syndrome if you will. No one sees a giant hook coming from backstage to pull all the homeschoolers and privately schooled kids into the pit of homogeneity and government regulation, yet it’s still there. It’s moving so slowly the audience doesn’t really notice it until – suddenly – the kids are gone.

Just recently I became aquainted with a woman who is a former high school counselor who does high school/college/career counseling for the homeschooling community, in addition to running an online learning academy and homeschooling her own kids.

Today, she sent me the following:

I work with homeschoolers from across our nation in an advisory role.  All too often here lately, I am talking with families in other states that have recently passed vouchers or other forms of monies for ‘school choice.’  I hear the same story from most of them.  The bills passed with minimal regulation, affording families choices in curricula and services, but after a year or two, those regulations increase and tighten, constricting those choices.

I spoke with a homeschooling family in another state yesterday, where they’ve had these vouchers in place for nearly a decade. When the family first began homeschooling, they were very loosely regulated and had the freedom to choose their curriculum. Now they spend a good portion of the school year ‘checking off boxes,’ ‘meeting with state officials,’ and trying to make sure they ‘jump through all of the hoops.’ The mom was very frustrated because it wasn’t helping her; it was wasting her time. The son was frustrated because he was no longer allowed to explore the classes that interested him (he wants to go into computer engineering, not underwater basket weaving), but instead had to complete a series of worksheets and other things his state-compliance-officer said he had not checked off in the “thousands of check boxes.” The mom said they literally spent four hours in a meeting last week with said officer going through a list of boxes of things to see if her son had covered the topics. Mom says the vast majority of these changes have come down the pipe in the past three years.

When I talk with homeschooling families in states where vouchers have more recently passed, I hear a similar story, but on a fast-tracked timeline. They were sold one idea, and then it was changed a year or two later. It’s the legislative bait-and-switch. While my examples are all about homeschooling families, as that is the population I work with, I’m sure that there are elements of bait-and-switch that are going to apply to non-homeschooling families as well. Don’t give up your freedoms in the name of getting a little bit of money. In fact — every family I speak with says that money flows freely at first, but then becomes harder and harder to get. The CA family from yesterday still has 85% of their allotted funding left for the year because they can’t access it since they haven’t jumped through all the appropriate hoops yet. Mom ended up paying for all of their curriculum out of pocket and is still required to follow the state voucher rules.

My experience is with homeschooling families, so I cannot speak to how school choice is affecting families of private or public school students.  But from a psychological perspective, it’s much easier to control the mouse in the maze once you have it used to getting the free cheese. 

Okay, one could call this “fallacy of small sample”. This is one woman I know, who talks to homeschooling families.

But what we can do is this: Governor Stitt is quoted in a recent Daily Oklahoman article about his committment to a voucher plan for Oklahoma, as saying,

“Other states like Iowa and Virginia and Florida and New Hampshire have already figured it out,” Stitt said in his remarks. “Providing more options for students leads to better outcomes. Oklahoma cannot afford to be left behind.”

Oklahoma Gov. Stitt proposes $130M school voucher program. Will rural opposition sink it again?

So, let’s at least do this: let’s go out and see what the Homeschooling Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) says about the homeschooling requirements for each state.

Iowa: Good grief. Iowa’s homeschooling regulations are too numerous to bother with here. The link is on the state name, good luck getting through all that in under 15 minutes. Also include a VACCINATION REQUIREMENT for kids.

Virginia: Same song second verse. Homeschooling regulations too numerous to mention including a VACCINATION REQUIREMENT for kids. Yup, very, very free so far.

Florida: Well, there is no vaccination requirement, but if you’re going to school your kids at home, you’ll need to show the state a portfolio of your work and take a normed achievement test yearly and provide those results to the state, or have your kid/s evaluated by a psychiatrist or psychologist. Gosh, I can see nothing going wrong there. What if the kid ever wants to run for public office or be a CEO? “Well, son, I can see that you didn’t pass a psychiatric evaluation by the state to graduate your homeschool…”

New Hampshire: Great. New Hampshire is better – NOT! Here you have to register as a homeschooler, TEACH REQUIRED SUBJECTS, keep and retain a portfolio for two years and REPORT TO THE STATE if you graduate your child before the age of 18.

OCPA just reminded us today of new statistics put together by EdChoice.org – a multimillion dollar, 501c4 organization. OKLAHOMA PARENTS CHOOSE TO HOMESCHOOL MORE THAN ANY OTHER GROUP OF OPTIONS OUTSIDE PUBLIC.

In fact, I’ve met more people recently – including my neighbors – who’ve moved here from another state to HOMESCHOOL thanks to the right of parents via the Oklahoma Constitution to educate their children by “other means“.

Last year, during our fight to prevent Republicans from making homeschool and private schools public via SB1647, a lady reached out to us on our Facebook page and said,

Why there are legislators in Oklahoma who want to make Oklahoma LESS FREE for parents to educate their children, I have no idea. It literally makes no sense. But, our Governor – in his own words – has said he wants Oklahoma to be MORE LIKE the four states listed here.

THAT IS NOT GOOD NEWS FOR HOMESCHOOLERS – OR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO HOMESCHOOL – HERE IN OKLAHOMA.

2

Five Reasons Republicans Should Not Support Vouchers

Though few may pay it the attention it’s due, the Republican Party has a Platform snapshotting a picture of the basic things Party members generally believe. Oklahoma has its own Platform created through a process that eventually ends in a vote of acceptance at their biennial convention. The Oklahoma County GOP has a very good one page summary of the OKGOP Platform here.

According to this OKGOP Platform, these are five reasons Republicans should NOT support ‘School Choice’ vouchers (please see “An Analysis Of Three Oklahoma Voucher Bills” for more information on what the bills say):

  1. Republicans believe in “limited government“. In fact, that is where the term “conservative” arises. We wish to ‘conserve’ the rights to the people by limiting government to the smallest footprint possible. Every universal voucher bill filed in the senate creates 6 to 7 sections of NEW LAW. In fact, they expand the Oklahoma Treasurer’s office by providing it not less than 20 new duties.
  2. Republicans believe in “personal, moral responsibility“. Taxpayers are forced to pay taxes to governments. If their taxes are not paid, the government will either take our property or our liberty (by throwing us in jail). Once the money leaves our hands, it’s not ours anymore. It is placed into one giant pot over which we have minimal control – through our legislators (taxation with representation) – as to how it’s spent. We can’t use government as a bank – our money isn’t earmarked as ours once it goes into the pot – all we can do is use the services our lawmakers choose to provide us for the money we must provide them from our budgets.
    • It is our personal, moral responsibility to raise and educate our children the way we believe is best.
    • It is the personal, moral responsibility of our elected lawmakers to do what is necessary to make government – including public schools – produce results and be accountable to the taxpayer whose dollars they appropriate.
    • It is the personal, moral responsibility of parents to move their lawmakers to force educational results (accountability) on our public schools, but it is also our personal, moral responsibility not to go to our lawmakers and demand more of our neighbor’s money so that we can put our children in schools we couldn’t otherwise afford without help. That is called welfare and/or socialism – definitely NOT a Republican ideal.
  3. Republicans believe in “individual liberty“. If the government gives a private school taxpayer dollars from the public coffers, taxpayers have the right to demand accountability for those dollars. This accountability can put boundaries on “individual liberty”. The Class Wallet debacle shows this to be true in spades.
    • In 2020, Oklahoma government officials – including now State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters – contracted with a PRIVATE organization called “Class Wallet” to disseminate over 17 million dollars in GEER funds (Governor’s Emergency Educational Relief). Parents who privately schooled their children were gifted $6500 for tuition to the tune of 10 million dollars total through the “Stay In School” program. Public school parents who needed help schooling their children online were gifted up to $1500 through the “Bridge The Gap” program.
    • Today, federal and state auditors are investigating over one half million dollars in GEER funds that were spent on things other than education, essentially defrauding the taxpayer. This same thing also happened in Arizona, through their private voucher program.
    • According to The Frontier, the Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) is sending emails to identified users of the programs – for apparent accountability measures – asking, “What was the particular purpose surrounding your purchases during the pandemic?” And “were you homeschooling your children, or were they still in school?” ROPE has expressed continuous concern that homeschooling families taking government money would be assimilated by the government. The government gave away the money without guardrails – what good could it do to determine if families schooled at home or not?
    • Once the government begins to separate homeschooling families from private school families and online public school families from homeschooling families, Oklahoma’s previously undefined, but Constitutionally protected use of education “by other means” is in jeopardy of becoming regulated by the state, thus subverting the “individual liberty” of parents to school their children without state interference.
  4. Republicans believe in “state sovereignty“. Unfortunately, the Oklahoma legislature and public schools LOVE to get federal funding. In fact, according to this article from 2022, Oklahoma is 15th in the amount of federal funding we receive.
  5. Republicans believe in the “free market“. Public/private partnerships are not “free market”. Once the government – at any level – injects money into a private company/organization/school, the business to which the funds were given, now has an edge over the wholly-privately-owned businesses that weren’t able to, or didn’t, capitalize on on government handouts.
    • Nowhere is this better seen than the distribution of CARES Act monies. According to Forbes, private equity firms used federal funds to boost profits, crushing their competitors, the ‘little guys’ who weren’t able to capitalize on federal loans.
    • The “free market” describes a system of business free from government intervention, where businesses compete with each other so that the best companies prevail. Injecting public funds into a private school will create an imbalance in the private school system in which those taking state funding will grow and those that don’t, won’t. Sadly, the ones NOT taking public funds will do so to retain their autonomy, yet parents will slowly be denied access to an autonomous private school as the public-fund-sucking schools overpower their marketshare – leaving parents – AGAIN – with less choice than they had BEFORE government intervention.

Vouchers, like the Republican-pushed Common Core before it, are not based on Republican ideals and they will not work for Oklahoma families just like they haven’t in states like Arizona that have tried them.

As we’ve pointed out again and again, Oklahoma HAS SCHOOL CHOICE! We have a voucher program – the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship for children with disabilities. We have the Opportunity Scholarship Fund which uses donations to “help[s] low-income families bridge the financial gap between what they can afford and what is best suited for their student for specialized PreK-12 education”. According to the Oklahoma section of the “National School Choice Week” website, Oklahoma has approximately 60 charter schools, several magnate schools, over 200 private schools, six fully online public schools, Constitutionally protected homeschool, and “learning pods”. The idea that ‘vouchers’ are required to somehow provide parents with school choice, should make one wonder then – what exactly do the people pushing “school choice” legislation really want?

2

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑