I remember how it was -- JR
Father Banned From Kids’ School After Speaking Up at School Board Meeting
Luis Sousa was ordered not to enter his children’s school after he spoke up at a school board meeting.
Now, the father is taking the local Massachusetts school district to court.
The ban by the school system impedes Sousa’s “right to observe his government … [and] participate in government,” his attorney, Marc John Randazza, told The Daily Signal during a phone interview Tuesday.
Sousa’s children, ages 5 and 6, are enrolled in Mildred H. Aitken School, part of Seekonk Public Schools in southern Massachusetts, about 70 miles west of Cape Cod.
Here’s what happened to their dad.
Sousa sought to attend a Jan. 5 meeting of the Seekonk School Committee to address the school district’s masking policy. However, when he arrived, the time for public comment had concluded and the committee was holding a private executive session.
Upon being denied entry, Sousa stood outside the window of the room where committee members were meeting and began to protest for his right to give a public comment.
“Why are we not allowed in the meeting?” Sousa asked while standing outside, according to a video provided to The Daily Signal by Randazza. “You canceled two meetings. Why can’t we go?”
Committee Chairman Kim Sluter called the Seekonk Police Department, according to Sousa’s complaint filed in court. The complaint states that Sluter “lied to the police that Sousa was ‘banging on the windows’ and that he was some kind of physical threat.”
Sluter did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Following the incident, Schools Superintendent Rich Drolet issued a temporary “no trespass” order.
That order was lifted after a few months, Randazza said.
Nearly nine months later, on Sept. 26, Sousa’s wife Kanessa Lynn made public comments during another school board meeting. She was asking to donate conservative podcaster Matt Walsh’s book “Johnny the Walrus” to the school, Randazza said.
When the committee told her that the allotted time had expired, Sousa yelled from the back of the room: “I’ll wait till my wife’s done.” Lynn was told to sit down.
“So, you should have had a meeting two weeks ago,” her husband told the committee.
The committee called a recess and Sousa said, “This meeting is a joke” before Drolet asked him to leave. A school resource officer entered the meeting room and escorted Sousa out.
The next day, Drolet notified Sousa that he intended to issue a permanent “no trespass” order. Sousa met with the superintendent Oct. 3 to discuss the looming order.
They talked about the incident in January when Sousa stood outside asking why he couldn’t attend the school board’s closed-door meeting.
“We did the temporary no trespass order last [school] year based on, you know, an outburst outside the windows here where you were screaming and video-recording through the window,” Drolet told Sousa during their meeting, which Sousa recorded with the superintendent’s knowledge.
“Let me correct you there,” Sousa said. “There was no screaming, there was no banging on the windows, like that report said.”
The two proceeded to disagree over whether Sousa yelled.
“I’m Portuguese,” Sousa told the superintendent. “Portuguese people are loud, we use our hands, just like Italians. They are loud. We speak loud. I’m also bipolar. I’m not screaming, I’m not yelling, I’m diagnosed bipolar.”
“It’s a difference of opinion, I guess,” Drolet said.
The 13-minute meeting ended with Drolet informing Sousa that the no trespassing order was in effect immediately. Sousa said the school district would be hearing from his lawyers.
The following day, Oct. 4, Drolet issued the permanent order in writing.
“Please be advised that you are forbidden from entering upon the premises of Seekonk Public Schools, including the grounds and inside any building,” Drolet told Sousa in the letter, adding that he is “not allowed to attend any Seekonk Public Schools-related functions or events.”
The letter explains that Sousa may attend parent-teacher conferences for his children or a back-to-school night only if he gives the superintendent’s office at least 48 hours’ written notice. Similarly, Sousa may be able to attend events at his children’s school if he asks permission no less than two days in advance.
Sousa may be “subject to criminal trespass and other offenses as provided for by law” if he violates the order, Drolet said in the letter.
Because public schools in Seekonk are used as polling locations, under the order Sousa “has to ask the superintendent of schools for permission to vote,” his lawyer said.
“Seekonk’s behavior is a disgrace,” Sousa told The Daily Signal in a text Tuesday, referring to the school district. “Superintendent Drolet is holding my kids’ well-being hostage, because his unconstitutional acts tell me that he doesn’t like that I don’t agree with him.”
In the text, Sousa also criticized Sluter, the school board chairwoman, for what he said she did:
School Committee Chairwoman Sluter provably gave a false report to the police about my protest because, I can only surmise, she wanted the police to think there was a real emergency. And I’m the one in trouble? I’m the one who can’t go to pick my kids up at school, can’t go to government meetings, can’t even VOTE without begging Drolet for the privilege?
For the rest of my life? This is outrageous, and I hope that we have a judge with integrity. If we do, I win. If she is merely part of the establishment, I guess I will have to spend the rest of my life effectively banished from any kind of public life.
“You don’t get to be judge, jury, and executioner … and decide without any kind of a hearing, without any kind of due process, that you’re going to banish somebody for life from public participation,” Randazza said of the superintendent’s order regarding Sousa.
Sousa and his lawyer filed a motion Friday in U.S. District Court for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to allow Sousa to enter school buildings again.
“The Seekonk School Committee supports the right of free speech of all Seekonk residents,” John Davis, a lawyer representing the school system, told The Daily Signal in an email Tuesday. Davis added:
The School Committee also recognizes, however, that at times public expression at open meetings may unreasonably disrupt or interfere with the ability of the Committee to conduct important school business in an efficient and orderly manner.
Such disruptions and interference are rare, But when and if they occur, the School Committee is committed to taking all appropriate measures to restore order so that the great work of Seekonk Public School administrators, students, and staff may continue unimpeded.
Randazza argues that the superintendent’s order banning Sousa violates his First Amendment right to free speech, the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“These people who claim to be in it for the kids, I think they’re in it for the political power,” Randazza told The Daily Signal, “because it’s just … so petty and small.”
The school district has until Nov. 28 to respond to the court complaint, Randazza said, and the judge will set a hearing on the motion for an injunction.
“But every single day that goes by,” he said, “Seekonk schools are holding this guy’s kids’ well-being hostage.”
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Woke Ivy League Princeton University will now offer students paying $79k-a-year courses in BDSM, fetishism and body positivity in 2023
Notoriously woke Princeton University will start offering courses in BDSM, fetishism and body positivity in 2023.
The $79,000-a-year Ivy League's course catalogue for the Spring 2023 semester includes classes on 'Black + Queer in Leather: Black Leather/BDSM Material Culture,' 'FAT: The F-Word and the Public Body' and 'Anthropology of Religion: Fetishism and Decolonization: Fetishism and Decolonization.'
Those courses would be taught by arts professors, dance professors and scholars, and would require students to read books like The Color of Kink: Black Women, BDSM and Pornography, Queering Fat Embodiment and On the Worship of the Fetish Gods.
Students at the school are now speaking out against the BDSM course offering, likening it to the university 'forcing undergrads to smoke a cigarette to study its effects.'
Classes at the New Jersey school cost $57,410, while students must also pay $10,960 in room fees, a $7,670 board rate and $3,500 in miscellaneous expenses — bringing the total cost up to $79,540.
But in September, university officials announced it will offer a 'free ride' for most undergraduate students from families making under $100,000, including tuition, accommodation and food.
Among the courses offered at the Ivy League next semester is 'Black and Queer in Leather: Black Leather/BDSM Material Culture,' taught by Lewis Center for the Arts lecturer Tiona Nekkia McClodden.
The course description says students 'will explore the material culture of this community from three perspectives: Architecture + Location, Visual Artists and Exhibitions, and Black Queer BDSM communities.'
As part of the course, students will also conduct 'significant research focus on finding and presenting new materials.'
They will also 'survey... existing BDSM archives in research libraries, community groups and individuals and their personal ephemera.'
It is unclear what kind of research the students will be expected to conduct, but Merriam-Webster defines BDSM, which stands for 'bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism' as 'sexual activity involving such practices as the use of physical restraints, the granting and relinquishing of control, and the infliction of pain.'
The sample reading list for the course includes books like Sensational Flesh: Race, Power, and Masochism by Amber Jamilla Musser, The Color of Kink: Black Women, BDSM, and Pornography by Ariane Cruz and The Black Body In Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography by Jennifer C. Nash.
Also on the list is A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography by Dr. Mirelle Miller, an associate professor of feminist studies at UC Santa Barbara who describes herself on Twitter as a 'smut collector.'
Miller had previously been arrested for getting into a physical altercation with a pro-life teenage student in 2014, and was sentenced to community service, anger management classes and was required to pay $493 in restitution to the teen.
The BDSM course has already sparked backlash amongst students who see it as inappropriate to teach college-age students.
'The primary issue I take with this course is its employment of pornography,' junior Paul Fletcher told College Fix. 'In the course description, pornographic content is required reading.
'Pornographic content of this sort is highly addictive, particularly to men and women of college age, often correlating with severe anxiety and depression,' he claimed. 'Students cannot just watch it, "study it," without consuming it.'
He added: 'This is the equivalent of a Princeton course requiring every student to smoke a cigarette each week and "study" its effects. This course has no place in a university that prioritizes the well-being of its students.
'The concern here... is the university-funded imposition of something potentially harmful and addictive by faculty onto students,' said Fletcher, who serves as the president of the Princeton chapter of Anscombe Society — an undergraduate organization that promotes traditional views of sex, love and marriage.
Sophomore Julianna Lee, who serves as the club's vice president, also said she is 'shocked that such a course is being taught at Princeton.
'Cultural discourse and understanding are good things, but there is no need to do it in such a way that students are exposed to content that has been scientifically proven to be harmful,' she said.
Lee added that 'plenty of people would be opposed to the idea of glorifying domestic abuse or gun violence, so why is it OK to have a class dedicated to concepts that promote unsafe sexual practices.'
She then went on to say that she has never seen a course at the school dedicated to traditional understandings of sexuality.
'I have not yet seen a single course here dedicated to exploring what it means to love in such a way that minimizes damage, including a clear dating timeline and how to truly will the good of another.'
Meanwhile, other courses would have students studying body positivity and the history of fetishes
FAT: The F-word and the Public Body, is a returning course at the school, taught by Judith Hamera, a dance professor.
Students in that course, would discuss what it means to be fat and 'will examine the changing history, aesthetics, politics, and meanings of fatness using dance, performance, memoirs, and media texts as case studies.'
The suggested reading for that class includes Queering Fat Embodiment by Cat Pause et al and The Neoliberal Diet by Gerardo Otero.
And a third course offered at the school next semester, entitled Anthropology of Religion: Fetishism and Decolonization would be taught by research scholar Milad Odabaei.
It vows to introduce students 'to the anthropology of religion, and a key debate of the field on the fetish.
'Students will learn about the colonial history of the study of religion and the role of fetishism therein,' the course description says.
'They will gain the tools to critically intervene in ongoing conversations about race, sexuality, cultural difference and decolonization by becoming familiar with debates on fetishism in anthropology, critical theory and black and queer studies.'
Readings for that course include On the Worship of the Fetish Gods' by Charles De Brosses, The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof by Karl Marx and Fetishism by Sigmund Freud.
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Cut the fat in the Australian curriculum. There’s a lot in the curriculum kids can live without.
The recent release of the 2022 NAPLAN results were met with a collective sigh of relief from governments and the education sector after the doomsday prediction of students suffering significant learning setbacks due to the Covid pandemic did not occur.
While it is undoubtedly a good thing that the damage to our students was limited from the catastrophic public policy failure that was Australia’s pandemic response, the latest NAPLAN results should surprise and concern us all.
For example, the national Grade 3 reading results placed 95.5 per cent of students at or above the National Minimum Standard in 2022, compared to 95.9 per cent in the previous two tests in 2021 and 2019. Likewise, Grade 3 numeracy shows similarly consistent results with 95 per cent, compared with 95.4 per cent and 95.5 per cent in 2021 and 2019, respectively, and writing, equally consistent, with 96.2, 96.7 and 96.3 per cent of students at or above the National Minimum Standard.
Based on these figures it would appear that almost two years of lockdown made no difference to the Grade 3 cohort. The results also suggest that those parents of Grade 3 students – who during Covid were likely working from home, juggling family responsibilities, are unqualified, and lacked access to usual teaching resources – did just as well as their child’s school could have.
But how can that be?
Given the knee-jerk lockdowns in Victoria, often announced with less than two-hour’s notice, teachers were asked to perform miracles and provide a curriculum for parents to teach their children with no notice and achieved this by focusing only on the core items.
A Melbourne Prep teacher told the Institute of Public Affairs’ Class Action program about her experience immediately after hearing her school would be forced to close due to a snap lockdown;
‘I ran off heaps of worksheets for parents focusing on numbers and I gathered a selection of appropriate readers for each child and sent it all home in folders. It was pretty basic, but I knew it would do the trick. There’s a lot in the curriculum kids can live without.’
The Grade 3 NAPLAN results are testament to the great job teachers and parents did and, yet again, reinforces that foundational skills are pivotal to setting students up for success.
Yet, the very same NAPLAN results also highlighted what happens when the basics are not taught to students. Of all Year 9 students, 23.5 per cent are at or below the minimum national standard and shockingly, almost 15 per cent of Year 9 boys did not meet the National Minimum Standard for reading.
Federal Minister for Education, Jason Clare, sought to dismiss these worrying figures by saying, ‘It’s not clear whether that’s Covid, but I would suspect that’s a big part of it.’ Sorry Minister, the standard ‘Covid caused it’ excuse doesn’t pass the test here.
While the current crop of Year 9 students has shown stable results in numeracy every year since they were first tested, their reading and spelling results tell a different story. The percentage of this cohort at least achieving the National Minimum Standards in reading when in Grade 3 was 95.1 per cent, in Grade 5 was 94.9 per cent which has now fallen in Year 9 to 89.6 per cent. Spelling shows a similar decline from 94.4 per cent when they were in Grade 3 and 5, which has now fallen to 91.8 per cent.
If the pandemic is to blame for these worrying reading and spelling results, as Jason Clare suggests, then why did these students’ numeracy results stay consistent?
Could it be more fundamental? Could it be the teaching methods these students have been exposed to since the time they started their schooling?
This cohort of students have been exposed to the widely used teaching method of ‘whole word’ and ‘inquiry’ approach to learning to read and spell. These methods have rightly been criticised by many as the culprit of falling standards for failing to provide students with the necessary foundation and analytical skills required to understand more sophisticated language.
NAPLAN is sometimes criticised as a myopic view of a child’s development because it only tells part of their story, and there is some merit to this argument. However, what it does provide parents is an independent and objective radar for whether their child is grasping the basics, and the truth of the matter is that many students are simply not.
Just throwing more money into education as some teachers’ unions would like to see is clearly not the answer. Institute of Public Affairs research shows in Victoria, since 2014, spending on education has increased by 30 per cent, yet critical reading and numeracy results have not increased in a commensurate manner.
And Covid is definitely not the culprit the Federal Minister of Education would have us believe.
If we learn anything from the pandemic, it is that students need to be taught the basics if they are to have a solid foundation for future study. Under pressure to produce lesson plans before being locked down, many teachers recognised the amount of unnecessary fat in the curriculum and when given the freedom to dismiss it, achieved great results.
We need to get serious about fixing the curriculum taught to our children, and it’s time we got back to basics.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/11/cut-the-fat-in-the-curriculum/
***********************************My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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