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Conservatives Can’t Win School Board Elections If THEY DON’T RUN! Here’s The Info You Need To Step Up!

This post was sent to us by a friend who compiled most of the information:

Moms For Liberty has done a great job helping people wanting to run for their School Board become trained to run.

They also have a Campaign Kit for those wishing to run that you can find on their website

If you don’t follow Janice Danforth, Moms For Liberty Tulsa Chapter Chair, whether on Facebook or X (Twitter), you should. They’ve helped to orchestrate training for school board candidates, so please reach out if you’re interested!

Leadership Institute ALSO has a school board training program that you should check out!

OKLAHOMA ELECTION INFORMATION

Filing for the 2024 school board elections is in December 2023.  Below is a list of seats up for election in the largest seven districts.  For the remaining 500 districts, please internet search for your local school district board and check to see which members board terms are expiring in 2024.

The 2024 school board candidate filing packet is available at  https://oklahoma.gov/elections/candidates/candidate-filing.html.

Click to access 2024-statutory-election-dates-deadlines.pdf

CLICK HERE FOR STATUTORY ELECTION DATES AND DEADLINES

TULSA PUBLIC SCHOOLS

District 2, Diamond Marshall, registered Democrat.  Appointed in March 2023.  

District 5, John Croisant, registered Democrat.  Won 6097 – 5530 in 2020.

District 6,  Jerry Griffin, registered Republican. Won 3302 – 3272 in 2020.  Griffin is not planning to run for re-election in 2024.

Board of Education – Independent School District No. 1 of Tulsa County, (tulsaschools.org)

Map of districts at https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1673018607/tulsaschoolsorg/fijfrf8nutluqv5dz9ln/TPS_Board_Districts_2022.pdf

OKLAHOMA CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

District 3, Cary Pirrong, registered Democrat.  Appointed 2022.

District 4, Mark Mann, registered Democrat.  Had no opponent in 2020.  Mann is currently running for State Senate 46.

Board of Education / Board Members (okcps.org)

Map of districts at https://www.okcps.org/Page/8011

EDMOND PUBLIC SCHOOLS

District 4, Cynthia Benson, registered Republican. Won 216-160 in 2014.  No opponent in 2019. 

Board of Education | Edmond Public Schools (edmondschools.net)

Map of districts at https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/3212/EPS/2620364/Board_Districts_and_Boundaries.pdf

MOORE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

District 4, Staci Pruett, registered Republican.  Won 52.9% in 2019 (471-183-156-81 four candidates).

Board of Education – Moore Public Schools (mooreschools.com)

Map of districts at https://www.mooreschools.com/school-board/new-district-map

BROKEN ARROW PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Zone 4, Brandy Roulet, registered Independent.  Won 714-471 in 2019.

Broken Arrow Public Schools – Board of Education (baschools.org)

Map of districts at https://www.baschools.org/vimages/shared/vnews/stories/4db9d74f01772/BA_Board_Zones-Sept2022.pdf

NORMAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Office 4, Chad Vice, registered Republican.  Won 2200 – 1937 in 2019.

Board of Education / Board of Education Members (normanpublicschools.org)

Map of districts at https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://www.normanpublicschools.org//cms/lib/OK02210265/Centricity//Domain/47/NormanSDWards2020.pdf

PUTNAM CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Office 4, Charity Avery, registered Republican.  No opponent in 2019.

Meet Our Board of Education | Putnam City Schools

Map of districts at https://www.putnamcityschools.org/page/board-offices-boundaries

STILLWATER PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Copied from Riley Flack’s Facebook page

Camille DeYong (Ward 1) – Special Appointment within 60 days. Applications being taken until November 21.

Melody Wright (Ward 4) Seat is up for Election. Filing dates- December 4 – December 6 at Payne County Election Board office.

From Stillwater News Press

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Jenni’s 5 Minute Rant Against Public School Sports – ROPE Report Live 10/27/23

Several years ago, I posted this meme to my Facebook page to watch it viewed and shared numerous times.

At the time, I don’t think I had begun to believe this, but I do now; sports should be removed from public schools.

Please, send your hate mail directly to my email box here (jenni@rope2.org) and feel free to comment on this piece about how I’ve now become so ‘fringe’ that I might as well be run out of town as a researcher and writer on all things education – but it won’t change my mind and here’s why:

Every year, against their own self-interest – citizens go to the polls and vote for school bonds for their district schools. These, the voting public is told via emails from schools (illegal actually) and via other means often at taxpayer expense, are requirements for the schools – they must have a GYM, or a new CAFETERIA, or a new football STADIUM/SOCCER FIELD/BASEBALL FIELD – or the students in the system will perish from the earth.

One of the ways in which we’re not free as Americans today is that the state owns our property and not ourselves. Every single person who owns any property, must pay a tax on that property to the state. That property tax – or Ad Valorum, to which our overlords refer deliberately to confuse the populace and keep them believing they own the address where they lay their head – goes, in part, to fund the public schools in the district. So, on top of property taxes – much of which go to public schools – the property of citizens are also endebted to pay out for the bonds the district has created because the new football stadium was a necessity to insure that children were properly learning.

Now, here’s the real rub – THE MAJORITY OF STUDENTS IN OKLAHOMA CANNOT DO MATH OR ENGLISH PROFICIENTLY. Yes, the majority of students graduated by our Oklahoma public schools can’t “read to learn”, or read to perform higher order skills, or do math well enough even to count change back at a retail job. This should horify ever single Oklahoma citizen, yet nearly every public school parent would have a complete freakout if their school discontinued sports to concentrate on EDUCATION.

It used to be – years ago now – that kids weren’t rewarded with any kind of fun if they hadn’t kept up their studies, yet, no such luck today. Today, we’re more concerned about being able to sit out under those Friday Night lights and have our school be the next 2A champs, than we are that Johnny can’t do math OR read properly for his age.

See, if education of state children were of the UPMOST importance, public schools would get rid of their sports programs and allow private organizations – many of which already exist today to serve homeschooling families – to provide that service for parents who wish their kids to be involved in sports.

One would think CONSERVATIVES would LOVE that idea! Let the FREE MARKET take over! Why should taxpayers not only pay for an horrificly poor education, but the sports programs sucking up the time students could be studying?

Enjoy the rant.

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A Social Media Punking of Leftists Shows Them To Be Not Only Extremely Intolerant But Alarmingly Anti-Christian

Forever it seems, when ROPE, or other conservative organizations, or parents have concerns that, “X is happening in public schools” (substitute the “X” for CRT, SEL, inappropriate ‘sex education’), the Leftists scream, “NO IT DOESN’T”. It doesn’t matter if you have a 3-D color photo of it happening in real time, the educrats inevitably just scream “NO IT DOESN’T”, as though these words are the only ones in their lexicon.

During the Common Core fight, public educators argued nearly every fact we uncovered regarding what the Standards said. Even when we’d publish exactly where we’d found whatever controversial topic we’d uncovered (and believe me there were plenty), the answer from the public school advocates was always some form of gaslighting meant to get people to disbelieve what their own eyes were seeing.

Just since writing about all the books found in public schools – and assigned by English teachers – that were not developmentally appropriate at best and flat out pornographic at worst – the lefties have come out of the woodwork to call any parent who complains about these books “book burners” or “book banners”, as a way to disenfranchise their opinions and deprive them of their First Amendment right to free speech. After all, what’s the fun in being reasonable and saying something like, “Okay, well let’s remove sexually inappropriate materials from school libraries while leaving them at the community library level.” I mean, NO “CONSERVATIVE” IS SUGGESTING BANNING BOOKS, just preventing kids from getting to them unless their parents want them to have them.

Then, there are all the LGBT grooming issues originating in public schools and then being hidden from parents by the school (check below for a substantive list of how often this is now happening in public schools). THIS issue, prompted former Board member, Julia Seay, to pose the exceptionally rational question below. It was merely meant to make people put 2 and 2 together to get the 4 of, if you don’t want your kid baptized behind YOUR back, don’t LGBT my kid behind MY back.

Instead of rational – or even interesting – discussion, we got hundreds of comments similar to the ones posted below. I wanted to put them here because I so often hear people refer to Oklahoma as the “Bible Belt”, or talk about how Conservative (meaning Christian?) we are in this state. HEADS UP: Oklahoma is quickly becoming a-religious and worse – ANTI-CHRISTIAN. If you don’t believe me, read some of these comments posted after Julia’s question, which you can read in full for yourself by clicking on the screenshot above.

PLEASE, IF BAD LANGUAGE OFFENDS YOU, BEWARE!

You get the idea…it went on and on and on…

Finally, a poster hit the nail on the head and – bless her heart – even defended us:

So, there you go. Anita says just what I would have said, but I’ll follow it up with a final thought.

THIS – this lack of critical thinking, narcissistic ideation, hatred of anything religious and/or Christian specifically, unimaginative, literal, inability to reason – did not come merely from the internet, IT CAME FROM PUBLIC EDUCATION. THIS is what we’re doing to kids with the money we earn with the sweat of our brow.

THIS represents educational malpractice of the highest order.

I’m a Christian. I try not to be fearful because I’m told in Isaiah 41:10 specifically not to be, but I can’t lie either; at this point, I’m afraid for our children in public schools and I’m afraid for our society and our way of life. We’re not leaving our kids a legacy to be proud of, we’re miseducating them and then turning them out like dogs on the county dump. It’s unbelievably horrifying and we should all commit to doing everything we can to PROPERLY educate our youth no matter what it takes to do so.

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This Social Media Exchange Helps Explain How DEI Gets Into Public Classrooms

I recently came across this post on social media and stopped. I agreed with the notion and started to look down through the comments to see what was being said about it.

Quickly, I came across this comment:

This comment made me feel the need to respond because of the use of her language, “bringing students into the conversation”, “using diverse methods”, “approaching students” – all which are progressive education buzzphrases – so I responded:

She replied:

I continued, hoping that she would understand what I was trying to say. She wasn’t ugly, she was – probably like me – trying to reach a point of understanding between us.

I wish I hadn’t been so terse in my response, but it’s somewhat shocking – even now – to see someone who so clearly wants to be helpful and so clearly believes she is doing the right thing, when in fact nearly her entire outlook is based on a completely flawed premise – that somehow teachers can overcome family and other outside influences (Tik Tok anyone?) by treating their students differently based on a concept that doesn’t exist in reality (equity). She responded one last time:

As did I:

Looking back on this conversation reminds me of one of the reasons I quit teaching; I saw these ideals bubbling up through continuing education courses and I knew I was never going to be able to assimilate them into my classroom. I couldn’t.

I have ALWAYS believed in the power of the INDIVIDUAL to succeed – or fail – depending upon how much effort that INDIVIDUAL put in. Now, is every kid primed to take up the gauntlet of self-individuation and put their head down with a plan? No. Too many other factors – especially a bad home environment – can put a chip on the shoulder of a kid that may never come off. That doesn’t mean that teachers in public school classrooms are to deal with that chip – even if a kid isn’t learning. Teachers can only do what they can do WHILE INSTRUCTING KIDS IN THE NECESSARY TOOLS OF LEARNING; reading, writing and math.

The particular theory this young teacher espouses asserts that teachers should become the parents of the children – because, obviously, the parents are not doing their jobs if kids are coming to school scared and weak and timid. Sadly, it’s true for many children today. Many parents use school as a babysitter and could care less what their kids are doing in a day to actually recieve an education, but that doesn’t mean it’s THE JOB OF THE TEACHER TO RECTIFY THE POOR UPBRINGING OF THEIR STUDENTS. In fact, most of the time, it’s either a psychologist, or the school of hard knocks that changes students with downward trajectories – if they do – some, sadly, go to prison or wind up dead. Still and all, the lifetrack of a child is not the responsibility of the teacher. The education of that student is – alone – the job of the teacher.

Teachers are not to become the parents of poorly-performing students, they are to work harder to bring parents into the equation (or remove the child from school if the child is disrupting others and the parents won’t help control the child) to help the child, not take on the troubles of the child themselves. In fact, it’s this kind of progressive ‘theology’ that leads to classrooms where feelings and psychological concepts take center stage, NOT INSTRUCTION IN READING, WRITING and MATH. I believe it’s easy to see how wrong-headed this model of ‘education’ is and how it’s RUINING children just by looking at Oklahoma’s test scores. And if you don’t believe me, check out this video for an enormous wake-up call.

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I Spoke Before The Oklahoma State Textbook Committee. Here’s Why and What I Said.

Author: Janice Danforth, Chapter Chair, Moms For Liberty, Tulsa County

On Friday, October 6, 2023, I spoke before the Oklahoma State Textbook Committee. Back in September, the Tulsa County Chapter of Moms for Liberty spent time reviewing textbooks that were up for approval and discovered that McGraw Hill has embedded Social Emotional Learning (SEL) into its elementary-level math books. We do not support SEL and it most definitely does not belong in Mathematics.

Social Emotional Learning was coined in 1994 at the Fetzer Institute and came about in the face of school violence. In 2002 ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) either encouraged or required the inclusion of SEL in schools. By 2022 SEL instructional materials cost $1.725B up 25.9% from the previous year. Does anyone believe that school violence has declined since 1994? No, the opposite is true. In fact, a headline from an article in 2021 states, “Violence in schools seems to be increasing, why?” We are being sold an ideology that not only isn’t working but is costing taxpayers a lot of money.

Oklahoma students are suffering with proficiency, not only in reading, but mathematics as well. In 2022 The proficiency rate in MATH for OK 4 th graders was at 27%. We are ranked 49 th in education and I’m certain all can agree that it is time to move the needle in the other direction. Oklahoma students deserve to learn the core subjects and 100% of the material should be focused on academics. SEL takes time away from academics and also undermines parental rights which clearly state that we are the authority of our child and are the ones to direct their moral upbringing. SEL interferes with that. We along with many other parents see the failings of this ideology and by no means desire for the government to mold the character of our children.

As the chapter chair, I had three minutes to state my reasons for why we were requesting the committee to reject this contract with McGraw Hill, and in turn, McGraw Hill had the same opportunity to share why they felt the committee should accept their contract. The State Textbook Committee has a month to make their decision.

While the committee may not reject the contract with McGraw Hill, I firmly believe we make changes one conversation at a time. Going up against a Goliath like McGraw Hill may seem daunting and even impossible, but change only happens when we fight, when we stand up, even if we lose this time. Because eventually, we get a win, and then another, and then another. But it takes all of us willing to stand up to the giant, to ignore the noise of the haters, and to go into the battle, win or lose because our children deserve for us to try. Our children deserve for us to fight for them, because if not us, who else will?

My Remarks

Good morning. My name is Janice Danforth and I am the chapter chair of the Tulsa County Moms for Liberty. I am here because our chapter spent time reviewing textbooks that were up for approval by the State Department of Education. We discovered that McGraw Hill has embedded Social Emotional Learning into its elementary level Math Books. We do not support SEL and it most definitely does not belong in Mathematics.

I want to give a quick background about SEL so you as a committee can understand why SEL is a concern. Social Emotional Learning was coined in 1994 at the Fetzer Institute and came about in the face of school violence. In 2002 ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) either encouraged or required the inclusion of SEL in schools. By 2017, K-12 was spending $21-47B annually on SEL. By 2022 SEL instructional materials cost $1.725B up 25.9% from the previous year. Does anyone believe that school violence has declined since 1994? No, the opposite is true. In fact, a headline from an article in 2021 states, “Violence in schools seems to be increasing, why?”

So, here are some concerns related to SEL:
SEL undermines parental rights
SEL is designed to become the “Parent Voice”
SEL is designed to be woven throughout all subjects
SEL impersonates mental health services
SEL allows teachers to psychologically evaluate students
SEL removes/doesn’t take into account beliefs existing at home
SEL coerces students to pick the “right” answer
SEL distracts and takes time away from actual education and gaining knowledge
SEL sets the focus on feelings rather than truth/facts. Why? Because emotions are easy to manipulate. You can’t manipulate the truth.

So, as a parent and as a taxpayer I have to ask the question, why are we spending so much money on a program that not only isn’t working but is undermining how a parent raises their child? And SEL has now become embedded into all subjects at school and this is a problem.

McGraw Hill creates textbooks and has been doing so since the late 18 hundreds, but that does not mean we blindly trust them and continue to allow their textbooks into our schools. In this particular instance, they have embedded an ideology into a core subject of Math, this is a red flag and should be for each of you. Oklahoma students are suffering with proficiency, not only in reading, but mathematics as well. In 2022 The proficiency rate in MATH for OK 4 th graders was at 27%. We are ranked 49 th in education and it is time to move the needle in the other direction. These students deserve to learn the core subjects and 100% of the material should be focused on academics.

As Moms for Liberty, Tulsa County I am asking you to reject the contract with McGraw Hill. The only way we change the trajectory of where we are headed is to say no to publishers like McGraw Hill who have embedded an ideology into a core subject. If enough states start standing up and saying no, these publishers will be forced to get back to academia and will be forced to remove programs like SEL because let’s be honest, for them, making money is the bottom line.

Set a precedent today for McGraw Hill and for other publishers that want to do business in Oklahoma that we will not tolerate nor invest in publishers that have embedded ideologies into their textbooks. Instead, let’s invest and partner with publishers that desire to increase proficiency and that is their only motivation. This is what Oklahoma students deserve!

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What Do The Oklahoma Tax Commission (OTC) Rules Say About The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit?

The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act (OPCTCA) – HB1934 – directed the OTC to create/promulgate rules “to implement the provisions of the [Act]” (page 6 and page 8). To that end, the OTC has created rules and now has them open for public comment until 4:30pm on Thursday, October 12th of this year. The rules can be found here. The Oklahoma Statutes created from HB1934 can be found here.

Beginning Monday (10/2), I began to compare the rules to the bill. The rules cannot mirror the bill/statute word for word, because the OTC rules will include verbiage specific to the Act’s implementation. After speaking with Representative Sherrie Conley, I did learn, however, that the rules do have to mirror the legislative intent of the Act – the OTC couldn’t add things via the rules process that weren’t already specified by the Act or the intent of the Legislature in creating the Act. Consequently, I confined my review of the rules to that parameter.

Wednesday, October 4th on our ROPE Report LIVE podcast, I explained my findings – but also, the reasons ROPE cannot abide the Act in the first place. You can find a clip of this video on the front page of the website, but the FULL video can be found on YouTube and Rumble. I think it’s worth a watch for the topics covered.

WHAT CONCERNS DID I HAVE WITH THE RULES?

I really didn’t find any place that did not mirror the legislative intent of the Act. In other words, I couldn’t find any law making through the rules. I did, however, take issue with a couple things:

  • There are two versions of “Taxpayer” in the rules. One called “Taxpayer” that copies the definition from the Act, and another called “Oklahoma Taxpayer” that defines that OTC verbiage for a tax payer. These two should be combined because it is confusing to have two “Taxpayer” definitions.
  • Under the definition of “Eligible Student”, the OTC adds to the Act’s definition by including the words, “and is registered with the Oklahoma Tax Commission”. What? Why would a child under 18 be registered with the Tax Commission? Their taxpayer parents/guardians are registered, not the child. This designation needs to go in my opinion (IMO). I don’t even see how it’s helpful here and it makes me nervous because we ALREADY collect so much data on CHILDREN in Oklahoma.
  • Warrant. There are several problems here IMO.
    • The Act’s definition of “Warrant” says, “means an order for payment directing the State Treasurer to disburse funds to a designated payee. A warrant operates like a paper check.” (page 2 near the bottom of the page)
    • 3D (top of page 5), says this, “Payment of the credit shall be made by the Tax Commission with an individual warrant made payable to the taxpayer and mailed to the private school where the eligible student is enrolled or expected to enroll. The taxpayer shall restrictively endorse the warrant to the private shcool for deposit into the account of the school, unless the tuition and fees for the eligible student have already been paid by the taxpayer.”
      • Why would the OTC send a paper check two places? Why does the school get it and the school ALSO get a warrant mailed to them? The taxpayer has to ‘restrictively’ (meaning they can’t endorse it for personal use – but then, how many people are going to have to be hired to check up on this?) endorse the check they receive to the school. Why doesn’t the parent just take the warrant to the school and not have the OTC issue two warrants?
      • This makes no sense IMO. In fact, the only reason I can see this ‘procedure’ being used is to make it seem as though the payment is coming from the family to the private school – which it is not. According to Forbes Oklahoma Income Tax Calculator, a married couple filing jointly have to make $180,000 before their Oklahoma income tax is $7500 (it’s $7,497) – the ‘reimbursement’ provided by the state for each child to go to private school. Therefore, the state pays the tuition to the private school for every child who applies for the ‘credit’ in a family that earns $180,000 or less.
      • This is extremely important because AG Gentner Drummond “is withdrawing a legal opinion that gained national attention for its support of creating religious charter schools” citing that he believes that state money going to private schools is unconstitutional. Not ony that, but there is a lawsuit to stop the publicly-funded Catholic online charter school already proposed.
      • Incidentally, a KOSU poll from last year found that voters oppose public money going to private schools – which is probably why House and Senate leadership (with cover provided by “school choice” groups Americans For Prosperity (AFP), OCPA and American Federation of Children) – lied to legislators and/or twisted arms to get them to agree that the Act was a ‘tax credit’.

Now, I could go more in depth about the OPCTCA here, but I did that in the video – and will continue to do it as time goes on with the vain hope that the people will see the errors in this idiodic scheme and tell the Legislature to do away with it because, in the long run, this WON’T help parents like the Legislature REDUCING OUR TAXES IN THE FIRST PLACE. The idea that the government overtaxes me and then wants to return money to me – most of it that it stole from OTHER PEOPLE to give me (redistribution of wealth) in the first place – is anathema because the government’s ‘gift’ gives it so much more control over me than if the taxes weren’t taken from me (by force) in the first place.

Believe me, as a Christian, I HATE being the one to stand up and say, “You can’t give my taxes to a private school”, but I’m only doing it because I firmly believe that this whole “school chioce” scheme is to make sure that the public money going to private schools will make private schools public so that NO PARENT HAS A CHOICE as to how their child/children is/are educated.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO NOW?

According to the OTC website, “Written comments will be accepted until 4:30 p.m. on October 12, 2023, at the Oklahoma Tax Commission, Oklahoma City, OK 73194, Attn: Lisa Haws, or by email to parentalchoice@tax.ok.gov.”

So, I’m sending an email to Lisa Haws that says,

Dear Ms. Haws,

Please consider the following comments regarding the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act rules:

There are two versions of “Taxpayer” in the rules. One called “Taxpayer” that copies the definition from the Act, and another called “Oklahoma Taxpayer” that defines that OTC verbiage for a tax payer. These two should be combined because it is confusing to have two “Taxpayer” definitions.

Under the definition of “Eligible Student“, the OTC adds to the Act’s definition by including the words, “and is registered with the Oklahoma Tax Commission”. Why would a child under 18 be registered with the Tax Commission? Their taxpayer parents/guardians are registered, not the child. This designation needs to go in my opinion (IMO). The designation of “taxpayer” already covers who pays taxes.

The Act’s definition of “Warrant” says, “means an order for payment directing the State Treasurer to disburse funds to a designated payee. A warrant operates like a paper check.” (page 2 near the bottom of the page)

  • 3D (top of page 5), says this, “Payment of the credit shall be made by the Tax Commission with an individual warrant made payable to the taxpayer and mailed to the private school where the eligible student is enrolled or expected to enroll. The taxpayer shall restrictively endorse the warrant to the private shcool for deposit into the account of the school, unless the tuition and fees for the eligible student have already been paid by the taxpayer.”
  • Why would the OTC send a paper check two places? Why does the school get it and the school ALSO get a warrant mailed to them? The taxpayer has to ‘restrictively’ (meaning they can’t endorse it for personal use – but then, how many people are going to have to be hired to check up on this?) endorse the check they receive to the school. Why doesn’t the parent just take the warrant to the school and not have the OTC issue two warrants?
  • This makes no sense IMO. In fact, the only reason I can see this ‘procedure’ being used is to make it seem as though the payment is coming from the family to the private school – which it is not. According to Forbes Oklahoma Income Tax Calculator, a married couple filing jointly have to make $180,000 before their Oklahoma income tax is $7500 (it’s $7,497) – the ‘reimbursement’ provided by the state for each child to go to private school. Therefore, the state pays the tuition to the private school for every child who applies for the ‘credit’ in a family that earns $180,000 or less.

Thank you so much for your consideration of my comments.

Sincerely,

Jenni White

Education Coordinator

Reclaim Oklahoma Parent Empowerment (ROPE)

jenni@rope2.org

CLOSING

Please feel free to make any changes to my letter – also, feel free to examine all the information for yourself to see if I missed something or if you don’t particularly agree with my criticisms of the Rules.

Please watch the ROPE Report LIVE video for more information on the OPCTCA.

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Ryan Walters’ Video Shows Parents The Truth About The Education Establishment, Which Makes Them Mad – And That Makes Us Happy

To be clear, ROPE has not agreed with Ryan Walters on the concept of “School Choice” at all in any way – and this is a big thing because it limits the power of parents to care for and educate their children. HOWEVER, we agree with him on just about everything else he’s waded into in a big way. Especially his absolute fearlessness in calling out LEFTY teachers/administration/unions wherever they are.

For years, as ROPE attempted to STOP Common Core, or help create non-Common Core educational standards or complained about teacher walkouts – we’ve been absolutely ASSAULTED and DEMONIZED on social media by the Leftist teaching cabal in Oklahoma which is alive and well and going by the hashtag #oklaed. This hashtag encompasses many groups, but a few are Oklahoma Edvocates, Oklahomans for Public Education, Oklahoma State School Boards Association, OEA and Pastors For Oklahoma Kids. I’m not giving any links here, but all you need to do is get on Twitter and follow that hashtag to see the people who run education in Oklahoma and what they’re all about. They don’t suffer fools – and that category encompasses ANY Republican (other than Democrats in Republican suits), ROPE and Ryan Walters specifically.

#oklaed are not for parents, they are for schools. They are not for transparency, they are for money. They are not for equality, they are for power. They are everything we need to extricate from Oklahoma educational facilities – partisan, tone-deaf, angry, name-calling, social justice warriors who hide behind the “but it’s for children” mantra as a way to push their lefty agendas.

In fact, Jami Cole – the Duncan 5th grade teacher who runs the Oklahoma Edvocates organization – has blocked our ROPE account on Twitter. Why? Who knows for sure, but I re-tweeted an ‘incendiary’ tweet in which she says that people who push vouchers are Christian Nationalists. Okay, well, ROPE hates vouchers, but we ARE a group of Christian men and women and leftists have coined the term “Christian Nationalist” as a way to shush Christians – much like they coined the term “insurrectionist” to shut down Trump supporters – so I see that as a problem.

But it’s not just that. Cole goes on to tell voters to switch parties in order to vote for Hoffmeister and Nelson for Governor and State Superintendent. Fascinating. Why she didn’t want me to retweet the idea she clearly seems proud of – who knows?

Jump to yesterday, May 25th. The Oklahoman – in an article which lists no author – published, “Ryan Walters launches ‘incendiary’ video denouncing teachers unions“. Inside the article – which is only available for subscribers – is the video they label ‘incendiary’. It’s on the front page of the OSDE website too – though the Oklahoman article says it was uploaded to YouTube and then taken down – implying someone didn’t want it up.

The video uploaded with the Oklahoman story includes interviews with both Jami Cole (wearing her Oklahoma Edvocates shirt) and Erika Wright (founder of another Oklahoma left-of-center organization called the Rural Schools Coalition). Erika Wright is apparently familiar with the definition of ‘incendiary’ as her quote for the story was that the video would, “get teachers killed” and that Walters “needs to be impeached”.

Teacher’s unions are not for kids – they’re for teachers and social change. If you use a search engine OTHER than Google, you could simply search “NEA” and find out stuff that would make the eyes of most parents bleed.

THAT’S why #oklaed is so angry about this video – IT SHOWS HOW OUT OF TOUCH WITH AMERICAN PARENTS, TEACHER’S UNIONS and their supporters – ARE.

It shows that there ARE pornographic books being pushed into public schools, it shows that teachers DO want to subvert parental rights when it comes to gender issues – in fact it shows unequivocally the obvious agenda to push gender issues on KIDS, period. That’s why the Oklahoman published it without ANY OTHER VOICES beyond those they wanted to hear commenting about the video.

George Keiser-supported Oklahoma Watch did the same thing with the Jennifer Palmer-penned “Superintendent Ryan Walters’ Video Escalates Attacks on Teacher Unions”

So here’s the deal – QUIT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE NEWS MEDIA. Watch the video for yourself. If you don’t believe what’s on the video, research the topics for yourself. Ryan is right here. Teacher’s unions are not the friend of parents or kids and in fact, I believe they actually seek to harm children in the long run because that’s what Marxists do – ruin families.

Also, while we’re at it, research your kid’s teachers. Find out who they are and what they could be telling your children when you are not around. Many are simply good people trying to do a job today that is ridiculously tough by any standard, many think they are doing the right thing by being their student’s friends and removing parents from the parental equation, some are simply predators and we know this from the constant news stories about teachers who have sexually preyed on their charges.

We do not live in your parents world. Wake up. Do your research. And for God sakes pray for our State Superintendent. He wears a heavy yoke standing against this dark agenda and for parents and kids.

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ROPE’s New Podcast “The ROPE Report” Debuted This Week (4.26.23) With Maria Seidler Discussing ROPE’s Lawsuit Against Stillwater Public Schools

Broadcast live to ROPE’s Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts, from 9am to 10am Wednesdays and Fridays every week (and uploaded to our Rumble channel), the ROPE Report aims, not only to discuss current education issues being decided in the legislature and the State School Board, but issues in education that can help parents make better choices about the educations they wish to provide their children.

Tuning into the live broadcast can allow you to ask questions of the guests, or comment, but if you miss the live feed, you can find the recordings available on all the social media outlets mentioned above.

Please watch Maria talk about our lawsuit with Stillwater Public Schools. It’s quite eye-opening! Especially about the part where SPS sues us for attorney fees and generates more court costs after our ONLY request in the lawsuit was AN APOLOGY. SPS literally spent nearly 60 thousand taxpayer dollars NOT to apologize to our friend Brice Chaffin for using a police officer to escort him from the podium before his 3 minute comment time was through and after reading scripture. This particular issue is an absolutely shining example of how out of control many public schools are and how much they dislike simply doing the right thing for parents and the community that support them with their tax dollars.

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When Is A Tax Credit A Voucher? When Governor Stitt and The Oklahoma Legislature Rename It That To Empower Parents To Steal Money From Other Parents To Put Their Children In Private School At Taxpayer Expense.

I’ve written numerous articles about the “school choice” issue, but I’m going to make this short (relatively) and sweet by giving several reasons why Governor Stitt and the Oklahoma legislature needs to wave off on the ‘tax credit’ fighter before it misses the landing pad and goes into the drink (my dad was in the Navy, give me a break).

  1. Nobody can receive a credit for something they didn’t buy/spend/pay for. If taxes weren’t taken by the government in the first place, they can’t just benevolently ‘credit’ you with tax dollars, no matter the semantic hoops that have been created to describe a tax ‘credit’. That’s the first thing.
  2. Many legislators are apparently being told, “Homeschoolers have been on board with a tax credit” as a way to strong arm votes for the Governor’s education package, and because – other than lefties who will never be able to answer how much money the public school system actually needs yet stand there screaming about being underfunded with their hands out every year – homeschoolers have been the biggest, loudest voice against vouchers in the state. Why? We KNOW that the more government gives, the more it regulates and the more it regulates, the less freedom we have. Those who Constitutionally educate their children “by other means” in Oklahoma, do NOT want to tangle with the government. That’s why we removed our kids from the public system. If Governor Stitt had offered to let us keep the taxes the state takes from us to fund the public system we never used, that seems fair (same thing for others who don’t use the public system by the way – FUND PUBLIC ED WITH A USE TAX AND WATCH HOW FAST IT CLEANS UP ITS ACT!), but that was never the offer, so NO, we’re not “okay” with a tax credit.
  3. In 2022, “President” Joe Biden announced that he would use taxpayer dollars to pay back some of the college loan debt racked up by students in the US. Guess what? “Student Loan Debt ‘Your Own Fault’: Conservatives Blast Biden Forgiveness Proposals” was the headline for a Newsweek article not long on the heels of the announcement. So student debt is – as any conservative worth their salt would say – the student’s fault, but because I don’t have the money to put my kid into private school, Governor Stitt and the legislature should GIFT me with another family’s money to put my kid into private school? How disingenuous is that? How OBVIOUSLY antithetical to the “student loan debt is the fault of the student” idea is that? What happened to, “scrimp and save” to give your kid/s a great education? Homeschoolers do that. Private schoolers do that. If you can’t do that, change something in your life to make it happen for you, but don’t pretend to be Oliver Twist and put your hand out meekly begging, “Please sir, I want some more“. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CONSERVATIVE CREED OF NOT RELYING ON THE GOVERNMENT TO LIVE YOUR LIFE?
  4. Oh no, do not hit me with, “But my tax dollars go to fund crappy public schools and I want my money back”. So what? Show up at the capitol and demand that the legislature, your State Superintendent of Public Instruction and your Governor MAKE PUBLIC SCHOOLS MIND, but don’t think it’s somehow conservative, Republican, or even sensical to tell the legislature to spend even more of our money to fix a problem of their own making! Tuesday night, Julia and I visited the Canadian County chapter of Mom’s For Liberty where State Superintendent Ryan Walters was speaking. He talked about how he and the Board of Education had instituted a new rule that could be used to take the accreditation of schools who won’t follow state law. Well if that’s the case, how many state laws do we have on the books (Title 70 – Oklahoma school law – is 1,488 pages) that schools don’t even know about let alone follow? Why in the absolute he## are our elected leaders NOT making schools follow the law? They could remove their funding. They could remove their accreditation. They could even remove their sports programs should they so choose, until schools began to focus on ACADEMICS and not politics and the newest, latest, horrible education fad. So, I cry BS on that! Don’t take my tax dollars to put your kid/s in a private school when me and my family have scrimped and saved to educate our kids OUTSIDE the public system on our own dime!

So there you have it. I didn’t even have to get to #5 to make the point. Don’t – especially if you’re a conservative – speak against socialism or rail about how Biden’s student loan debt giveaway is wrong – but then stand on the idea that it’s somehow ok – let alone conservative – to have the government gift each child in each family who wants it (until we’ve spent 200 million taxpayer dollars) $5000 taxpayer dollars to go to a private school. Period.

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