*By Julie Barrett, Founder, Conservative Ladies of Washington
“Don’t mask our kids!”
“Stop teaching our kids Critical Race Theory!”
“Don’t force my student to get a vaccination that is not even FDA approved.”
“We don’t want comprehensive sex ed being taught to our elementary school kids!”
These are just a few of the demands parents are making as children prepare to return to the classroom…or not. Parents by the thousand have pulled their children out of public schools over the past 18 months, but many parents for many reasons, will be sending their students back to public school in the coming weeks.
These are not minor things that parents are taking issue with. These are concerns that will impact our students for life in various different ways. They are not small things. I’ve decided that this is all part of the radical left’s plan for indoctrinating our children. When they create so many different concerns for parents, it makes it nearly impossible for us to prioritize and attack the issues that matter most. They’ve got us distracted by numerous issues leaving us playing an insane game of whack-a-mole that we can never possibly win.
The current “big issue” is the idea that students will be forced to wear masks full time at school regardless of vaccination status. And parents all over America are shouting “UNMASK OUR KIDS!” I’m right there with you! Children are at low risk of getting or giving Covid. Masks are more harmful for them for a plethora of reasons than they are good. Perhaps, though, the mask is a catalyst for parents to get their children out of the line of fire. If you take the masks off the children, you still have the social justice movement (aka CRT Critical Race Theory), you still have LGBTQIA2S+ being pushed on very young children and easily influenced teenagers and let’s not forget about Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) being presented to even our youngest students.
Take off the mask and you are left with a mess of indoctrination. Is that really what parents want? Is our biggest issue to get the masks off our children? Or is the mask a means of getting us to do the hard thing of pulling our children out of public education systems?
There are so many things I take issue with in the public schools right now. As a parent, it makes my head spin. It’s bigger than writing to the school board about an issue I’m unhappy about. There’s not an easy solution to the problem we have in our schools. The problems are, to use the left’s favorite word, systemic. The only way to fix the system is a complete overhaul and that isn’t going to happen quickly. It’s a long game that is going to take patience, perseverance, persistence and strategy. The left does this very well. After all, the things we are seeing in the schools today are the result of decades of slow, methodical work by the radical left. So slow, many of us didn’t even notice until it came into our homes on laptops during Covid lockdowns.
Having our schools shutdown was a gift. It opened the eyes of parents all over America to what our children are being exposed to daily in our schools. Now is our opportunity to do something about what we have seen. We can no longer use the excuse that we don’t know…we know.
So what’s a parent to do?
Well, if you can, take your kid out of the public, aka government, school system. The indoctrination going on in our schools is leaving little room for teachers to actually teach academics. The thought of homeschooling my children terrifies me – because I don’t think I’m good at that – but it terrifies me more to think of my children coming out of the public school system hating their country, feeling ashamed of themselves and not really being prepared for life after high school. Thanks, I’ll pass.
There are a ton of homeschool resources available and if you’ve got older kids, there are some online programs that might make things pretty simple on you as the parent-teacher. There are homeschool co-ops in almost every area, giving your student the opportunity to socialize with other kids their age. If you do a little research, you can probably find one that is more conservative leaning and not doing things like making kids mask.
If you can afford it, you can go the private school route but even some of those are questionable these days and have taken on some CRT teachings and are requiring masks and vaccinations for eligible students. And unfortunately, most private schools do not have the resources for special needs students, so if your student has an IEP (Individualized Education Plan), they may not be able to accommodate your student in the way that the public school has to, by law.
Get your student out of the “line of fire”, but stay in the fight. We cannot afford to pull our children from public schools and then just walk away from the problems. They will only continue to grow and the generations that come out of these indoctrination centers will be running our country and we will all suffer. This fight in the public schools is how we save our country. Run for the school board if you can. Attend and participate in school board meetings. Ask hard questions and demand answers. In my school district, I have never once gotten a response to my emails to the board or my comments at school board meetings. Yet I will continue to be a voice those board members can’t shake off.
Talk to your neighbors, your parents, the couple down the street who are empty nesters and let them know we need their voices…and their votes if we are going to turn this around. Tell everyone in your community how they can get involved and be part of the change we need for our children. Every VOTER (not just parent) needs to speak up and take a stand for what’s right…even though it is uncomfortable and inconvenient. Change is never comfortable, after all.
