Wherein a Williamson County School Board member takes Moms for McCarthyism to school:
Keep reading – it’s pretty great!
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Last night, the Williamson County School Board unanimously approved a mid-year pay raise for teachers and staff. If approved by the County Commission, teachers will receive a 3% raise and hourly staff will see a $1/hour pay increase, effective January 31st. The unusual move of raising pay for teachers and staff mid-year is happening because of severe teacher and staff shortages. The district currently has 71 teaching openings.
Williamson Strong live-tweeted the meeting and provided the key stats:
The move in Williamson County comes as districts across the state struggle with teacher retention issues exacerbated by the pandemic.
The move is also happening while Gov. Bill Lee and state policymakers examine Tennessee’s school funding formula. So far, that has not resulted in a serious discussion about dramatically raising teacher pay. In fact, this story highlights the level of priority placed on teacher pay in the state:
The current state minimum salary schedule for teachers sets the minimum salary for a Tennessee teacher at $38,000.
A Tennessee teacher with a bachelor’s degree would need to work for 10 years in order to achieve a mandated minimum salary above $44,000.
Now, however, brand new correctional officers will earn more than teachers with 10 years of experience. Yes, corrections officers deserve a raise.
It will be interesting to see what districts across the state do in 2022-23 and beyond to improve salary and working conditions for teachers and if the state’s new funding formula provides any help in this arena.
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Williamson County school advocacy group Williamson Strong posted a plea for residents to take action to urge policymakers to improve teacher pay.
Here’s what they posted to Facebook relative to the teacher shortage and staffing crisis:
· URGENT: We’re hearing multiple reports of a massive teacher/staff exodus from WCS.
YOU have the power to fix this. If you can’t be loud for this, don’t complain when your kid’s teacher doesn’t show up on Jan. 5th. What did you do to advocate for them? Starbucks and Target gift cards 1-2 times a year aren’t going to cut it.
Do you know your county commissioners’ names? You should. They approve the budget that pays for your children’s school staff salaries. (PS They also get “free” health insurance for a *very* part-time job, which is rich when our teachers have had their benefits cut short.)
If you’re a WCS parent, you know all about the staffing shortages in our schools this year. Many kids don’t have a science teacher, math, foreign language, special ed, etc. – and they can’t find enough subs to cover every day. Cafeteria workers, bus drivers, SACC workers, the things we’ve all gotten numb to hearing about because we think it’s normal to not have them in place.
It is *not normal* to ask parents to work the school lunch lines serving food.
But it’s about to get worse, starting THIS month. WCS teachers & staff are opting for early retirement or moving to other districts for 3 reasons from what we’re hearing:
1. Better pay. WCS is not competitive with Metro, for starters. Yet many of our young teachers live in Nashville (sure can’t afford to live here on those salaries in this housing market!) with tough commutes (especially with our ridiculously early start times in middle/high school) because they want to teach in WCS, despite the lower pay. Our kids are awesome. Everyone says that.
2. Benefits. Our retirement health benefits are not competitive with surrounding districts, and teachers start to figure that out as they have more experience and start thinking about retirement down the road.
3. The parents can be pretty tough here. We’ll leave it at that, but the insane abuse of the last 1.5+ years directed at teachers, staff, and administrators has many at a breaking point. (Stop being mean to school staff. Seriously. Cut it out.)
WHAT CAN WE ALL DO?
The County Commissioners are beginning their budgeting process right now. And they’re the ones holding the purse strings! They all love to say we can’t afford to increase our school budget, 85%+ of which goes towards salaries – because although we may be one of the wealthiest counties in the entire COUNTRY, we can’t find the money for teachers even at the state average, much less the national one. It’s beyond shameful.
DEMAND that the Commission fix this. They have the power. Literally! They know how to solve this, don’t let them tell you otherwise. You, the voters, are their constituents. You’re their boss.
Tell them to pay our teaches what they deserve, and if not? We’re all going to elect new County Commissioners who care about teachers come August. Every single one of them is up for re-election in 2022, and they’re going to start campaigning any month now.
And School Board members? Tell them the same. They should be kicking and screaming about this issue (instead of howling over curriculum like some of them are doing, month after month.) Priorities are showing. Half of them are up for election in 2022 as well.
Email them all. Today. Every day. Tell your friends to do the same. If you can’t find time to do this, don’t complain when your child’s teacher quits and leaves….when there’s a new face there in January, or they just have rotating subs every day or week.
Don’t complain if you don’t do your part to fix this. YOU are the constituent. YOUR tax dollars pay for teacher salaries. Tell the people who set the budgets how you want those dollars spent.
It’s a crisis. What we’ve been in national headlines for lately? NOT a crisis. Stop being distracted by the noise and let’s collectively start fighting for our educators.
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Cancel culture advocates Moms for Liberty saw a complaint they filed around curriculum in Williamson County rejected by the Tennessee Department of Education. The complaint did not follow proper procedure and was related to an issue outside the timeframe allowed in legislation that attempts to strictly regulate how issues around race are taught in schools.
The Tennessean has more:
The Tennessee Department of Education recently declined to investigate a complaint filed under a new state law prohibiting the teaching of certain topics regarding race and bias.
The complaint, the first directed to the state under the new law passed this spring, was filed by Robin Steenman, chair of the Moms for Liberty Williamson County chapter, a conservative parent group sweeping the nation.
The group detailed concerns with four specific books on subjects like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, the integration of California schools by advocate Sylvia Mendez and her family, and the autobiography of Ruby Bridges, adapted for younger learners.
The TDOE did not rule on the merits of the complaint, however.
“Please note that in declining to investigate these claims, the department has not made a determination regarding the merits of these allegations. We encourage you to work with the Williamson County School District to resolve the issues and concerns related to your complaint and ensure compliance with state law,” the letter said.
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Even as one local group born of Astroturf seeks to ban books and implement a “cancel culture” mentality in the school districts, parents affiliated with local, grassroots group OneWillCo in Williamson County took to the School Board meeting last night to speak in favor of diversity and inclusion.
Here’s a press release highlighting comments made by members/supporters of the group:
Alanna Truss, a clinical psychologist and parent of a Woodland Middle School and Kenrose Elementary School student, spoke in favor of moving forward ‘Fostering Healthy Solutions’. “For students who may be facing these challenges [discrimination and mental health], knowing that the board sees them as important increases the likelihood they will reach out for support. Our students also need to feel that their schools are prioritizing these issues, that school staff are a safe outlet, and that appropriate action will be taken. We need to equip our school personnel as well as our students to know what to look for and what their role is in responding. ‘See something, say something’ is a great slogan but it only works if individuals know what those ‘somethings’ are and they have confidence that something will be done.
Kate Keese, mother of a high school student in the WCS school system started by thanking the board members and Superintendent Golden for making efforts toward a safe and accountable school experience for all students and encouraged them to implement suggestions made by ‘Fostering Healthy Solutions’. “It seems to me that the work of Fostering Healthy Solutions is like preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. We want to be sure that we have considered everyone because we want everyone to feel welcome and know they have a place. I have taken several courses through my church over the last year and a half, exploring our country’s history and the legacies of that history. It has been a challenging and illuminating journey. There was much I didn’t know, and much I have yet to learn. At times it has been uncomfortable. We have come to believe we should avoid discomfort, but discomfort is how we grow. And now that I know better, I can do better…Learning our history is a worthwhile journey as it prepares me to set a more inclusive table. Taking the steps outlined in the plan from Fostering Healthy Solutions may be uncomfortable and, we will learn; where to add another chair and how to make a new dish, to welcome another person at the table. Because there is enough. And we always better when more of us are gathered and welcome and know we have a place.”
Lisa Rooney, a WCS parent also spoke in favor of the district’s continuing equity efforts, “Research is clear that students do not reach their full potential when they have concerns about their belonging, which is fundamental to well-being and academic success. Prioritizing belonging benefits all students by leveraging the science of learning. Creating environments where students of all races and backgrounds feel that they belong requires knowledge, skill, and commitment from adults. It takes courage to acknowledge our blind spots and to implement curriculum and policies that reflect and value the lived experiences of diverse students. It takes willingness, ongoing learning opportunities and partnership. It won’t just happen because we are well-intentioned, but it will make our schools better for ALL students. I am here to ask the board to, as a starting point, adopt a universal definition of diversity, equity, and inclusion alongside a strategic plan with clear goals and measurable outcomes so that we can fulfill our mission and ensure all students thrive.”
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Yes, the Tennessee affiliate of a national dark money group freaked out by seahorse porn has gained even more national attention. This time, the attention comes courtesy of the “Scary Mommy” blog.
Here’s how blogger Elizabeth Broadbent sees the scene in Williamson County:
This has led Moms for Liberty parents like white mother of three Robin Steenman to say that second-graders learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. will lead them to “believing white people are oppressors and minorities are victims,” which is a gross oversimplification, but generally what was going down during the Civil Rights era, so mission accomplished!
AND:
Moms for Liberty has also publicly posted video of a homecoming parade float belonging to a Franklin, Tennessee high school’s Pride Club and hit school board meetings decrying its existence. They claim same-sex high school couples kissed in front of younger students, and you know what the Bible says about that (check your Biblical index under high school, gay, homecoming). Also, Moms For Liberty was publicly posting pictures of underage kids making out.
Then there was the seahorse incident.
Once there was a book intended for first graders. This book was called Sea Horse: The Shyest Fish In The Sea, and it dared to show seahorses clasping tails and touching bellies. This sent the Karens in Franklin’s Moms for Liberty group clutching their pearls, because in case you didn’t know, that’s how seahorses mate. The Karens demanded that the book be banned, deeming it appropriate only for eighth graders. They also objected to Johnny Appleseed, calling his story “sad and dark” and said that first graders were too young “to hear about possible devastating effects of hurricanes.” Hurricanes, as everyone knows, are best experienced firsthand. Throw them into Hugo and let them learn in the real world!
Anyway, the whole post is worth a read for some great links exposing the antics of this very angry group.
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Fearing unchecked liberal indoctrination and raging seahorse hormones, the Williamson County chapter of a national dark money group calling itself “Moms for Liberty” is aggressively pushing a cancel culture agenda worthy of Joe McCarthy.
A sampling of news about the group’s recent antics explains.
CNN reports on the hunt for curriculum deemed objectionable by activists in the McCarthy Mom group:
“The school bus goes right in front of my house and my kid is dying to ride it,” she told CNN. “But not until I have deemed that the curriculum is safe and will do no harm.” Steenman is counting on a new Tennessee law to force schools to end that curriculum — and ban at least one book in the elementary school library written from the perspective of Mexican Americans.
The group’s antics have created chaos at school board meetings and attacked student groups . . . and even seahorses:
The chapter has grabbed headlines for belligerent protests at school board meetings. They have attacked a high school LGBTQ pride float — one tweet wondered if students passing out pride literature were doing “recruitment.” And another meeting featured a tirade by a Moms For Liberty member against a children’s book about the lives of seahorses, which she said was too sexual.
What these moms on a mission are really after is their own special cancel culture, where teachers tread lightly so as not to upset the wealthy and white:
In May, Gov. Bill Lee signed HB 580, a law aimed at banning so-called critical race theory from schools. Educators argue that critical race theory is not taught or included in the K-12 curriculum and is usually an elective class in college or law school.Section 51, part 6 of the Tennessee law makes lesson plans illegal if students “feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish.”
A spokesperson for the school board in Williamson County told CNN school leaders in the county have launched a “Reconsideration Committee” to review the books Moms For Liberty has complained about. One board member familiar with the process said new Tennessee law is hard to interpret, but this board member said they expect the state will ban at least one of the books Moms For Liberty cited.
Reuters reports that the fight in Williamson County is part of a broader, national movement:
The clash in Franklin, a Nashville suburb of 83,000 people, is part of a larger culture war over race and education that’s roiling other U.S. communities, and which has gained traction as a political force nationwide.
It has split parents and spooked some educators. Tennessee is pursuing plans to strip teaching licenses from instructors and cut state funding to schools that persistently teach taboo material.
Education Week reports on the potential chilling effect these McCarthy Moms could have:
Tennessee aims to levy fines starting at $1 million and rising to $5 million on school districts each time one of their teachers is found to have “knowingly violated” state restrictions on classroom discussions about systemic racism, white privilege, and sexism, according to guidance proposed by the state’s department of education late last week.
Teachers could also be disciplined or lose their licenses for teaching that the United States is inherently racist or sexist or making a student feel “guilt or anguish” because of past actions committed by their race or sex.
Joe McCarthy would certainly be proud.
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In the wake of COVID-19 wreaking havoc with school schedules, cancelling football games, and closing down at least one Williamson County School (Fairview Middle), the Williamson County School Board has called a special meeting for tonight to ask Gov. Bill Lee (a Williamson County resident) to include school operations in his emergency order so that remote instruction can be an option for virus mitigation.
Here’s a tweet from Williamson Strong with the resolution:
Here are some video messages from advocates of mitigation strategies that include a mask mandate:
Dr. Meredith Duke, a Vanderbilt Surgeon and mother of children in Williamson County Schools pleaded, “I attended the last board meeting almost two weeks ago and I was appalled at the behavior of the crowd and the lack of decorum… One of the mask mandate supporters was an infectious disease expert from Vanderbilt. I repeat, you had an infectious disease expert here, encouraging a mask mandate. She pleaded for our children’s safety and she adamantly supported a universal mask mandate.
“We were not heard and that has brought us to today. COVID is spreading in a completely uncontrolled fashion. Our children are sick, our teachers are sick, and our families are sick. In two weeks, both of my sons have had COVID exposures. I’m already canceling necessary surgeries because we don’t have beds to care for our patients. We don’t have beds, where our hospitals are literally at a breaking point. We, our community, needs to do something to make this stop. It’s imperative that you pass and enforce a universal mask mandate for all of our schools. We need to improve contact tracing quarantine protocols. We don’t have an adequate vaccine update. We are not mitigating anything. Your job is to provide a safe environment for children to learn. They are not safe. Please do your job. Stand up to the anti mask bullies and listen to the experts.”
Watch Dr. Duke’s full video statement here
Todd Barton, a arent of two children in Williamson County Schools called on the school board to follow CDC and American Academy of Pediatric guidelines, “The CDC, along with the American Academy of Pediatrics, thousands of local doctors and pediatricians, and our area hospitals, including Williamson County Medical Center have been very clear. And what they are recommending for schools during this pandemic masks, contact tracing, distancing limits to gatherings and quarantines. And all we’ve seen so far is a very limited mask requirement in elementary schools. And what we’re also seeing is the very predictable result of that. At my daughter’s school, nearly half the students are out, along with about a third of teachers and staff as well as a number of bus drivers. Students are in classrooms with substitutes, or sometimes staff who have no educational training. And when school closes, because, inexplicably, we’re prevented from using remote learning, they receive no instruction whatsoever at home. I don’t understand this. I know that there are some very loud voices involved. I know that there’s politics involved. But I’m begging you to rise above that, and to see to the health and safety of the students, teachers and staff staff by following the recommendations given to you by the medical professionals, as well as instituting a remote learning platform that was proven very successful last year to ensure continuity of learning.”
Watch Todd’s full video statement here
Kristie Harris, a Registered Nurse, small business owner, and mom of children who contracted COVID-19 from their Williamson County school shared that she has been so careful to not expose herself or her four children to COVID in the past year and a half. As a single mother who has asthma, she waited until she was vaccinated to put her children back in in-person school, because more than anything, she didn’t want to leave them as orphans. She shared that, “the current opt out system is what put my kids at risk. We were safe until we returned to school, and just 11 days to the year they are COVID positive. What’s even crazier is according to the Williamson County’s current exposure and quarantine rules, I could send my 13 year old to school right now, I could send him to school, not only could I send him, but I could send him unmasked to school because he doesn’t have any symptoms. And even though his brothers are both sick and COVID positive, there’s no rule against sending your kids to school with other kids at home who are positive. It’s absolutely insane. Of course, as a responsible parent and member of our community, I would never do that. But it does beg the question, how many are? The current exposure and quarantine policy is absolutely absurd. It’s dangerous, and it’s what’s continuing this path that we are on.” She ended saying, “I’m urging you to protect our kids.”
Watch Kristie’s Statement here
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Tori Keafer in the Williamson Herald explains the struggle Williamson County Schools faces with paying teachers enough to live in the county where they are being asked to teach.
Currently, the base salary for teachers in WCS is $40,150. In 2019, the Williamson County Board of Commissioners passed a 7-cent property tax increase to bump the base pay from $37,500 to the current rate.
Housing Struggle
“I think we all agree it’s not enough. We need to continue to make that a focus,” Superintendent Jason Golden said. “After we approved that, some of our neighbors voted for larger increases, so it is a constant battle. And I will tell you also, we’ve talked about the cost of living. Housing is an issue.”
District 9 board member Rick Wimberly pointed out the average home value in Williamson County, using data through May according to Zillow, was just over $595,000. With a $40,000 salary, a teacher would hardly have enough for home payments, he said, and living in an average apartment wouldn’t be that much better either.
“You’re still not scraping by,” he said. “We’ve got to fix that, and we’re not going to fix it tonight. … I just hope this is something, like Eric and like Jason have said, that we can take on as a high priority.”
Wimberly added:
“We are so far off — so far off — that it poses challenges now, but it’s just going to get worse and worse,” he said. “Perhaps it’s after the time I’m gone, but we’re going to have to face it as a community. This is a problem for us. And yeah, you can take my numbers and do whatever you want to with them, but I don’t think you’re going to convince me that we … pay sufficient[ly] to help people where they can have a good lifestyle in Williamson County or even commut[ing] from out of the county.”
The note on the battle over teacher pay in Williamson County comes after a similar story and fight in Maury County.
A recent story on teacher pay across the state also reveals that the state is not doing much to help the situation:
The Tennessee State Board of Education has set the state’s minimum teacher salary at $38,000 for the upcoming school year. That’s $49 more than the current average minimum salary, according to a story in Chalkbeat.
While the overall boost in minimum teacher pay is certainly welcome news, what’s interesting is to examine the pace of change in teacher pay over time.
As the Chalkbeat piece notes, the average teacher pay in Tennessee overall is $51,349.
Here’s why that’s so fascinating. Back in 2014, the state’s BEP Review Committee issued a report calling on the state to fund teacher salaries by way of the BEP at a level equivalent to the actual state average salary. That average? $50,116. So, the average now is just a bit over $1200 more than the average in 2014. In other words, teacher pay in Tennessee is creeping up at a snail’s pace. And, of course, teacher pay in our state is still below the Southeastern average (about $2000 below).
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If you’re looking for the hotbed of leftist indoctrination in Tennessee, you should look no further than Williamson County, the wealthiest in the state, located just south of Nashville.
I mean, just look at the Williamson County Schools embracing diversity and also promoting seahorse porn.
It’s very troubling.
Williamson Strong has a take on the latest events there:
As a reminder, the national Moms for Liberty organization is making a full court press here in Williamson County against….elementary school books, which they allege are teaching Critical Race Theory You can watch segments on their own YouTube channel for a full deep dive on their Critical Race Theory 101 event that was held a few weeks ago if you have a few hours to kill.
The group’s members and their social media supporters are constantly decrying the supposed indoctrination that’s taking place through the new reading curriculum being used in WCS. Yet curiously, most of the 30 public commenters they had speak out against the Wit & Wisdom curriculum at Monday night’s meeting focused on age appropriateness of the content, not CRT – they even had props and signs to accompany and illustrate many of the examples.
But wait, we haven’t yet mentioned the seahorses because honestly it deserves its own section.
Moms for Liberty has a real issue with a 1st grade book on seahorses, which they call “a soft introduction to Sex Ed” and “switched gender roles”.
We’re not making this up or even slightly exaggerating or taking this out of context. Please watch this part for yourself because it is a very worrisome book.
Read the whole post to get a view of what’s happening in Williamson County.
Those of you who have been around for a bit or who are regular readers may remember all the way back to 2014 when Williamson County Schools was labeled a hotbed of leftist indoctrination because of Common Core.
A group of candidates who strongly opposed Common Core were supported by the Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity and won a majority on the School Board.
Some of these individuals have expressed support for vouchers and for bringing charter schools to Williamson County. Those are two primary goals of AFP.
Alvey on Education offers a view of what’s happening from a Williamson County parent’s perspective. A recent post there discusses a pending resolution at the School Board level that would denounce Common Core. Of course, it seems increasingly likely that Common Core will die an early death in Tennessee. But, the post offers some insight into what is happening now in one of the best school systems in Tennessee.
It seems that every few years, some outside groups descend on Williamson County and insert some chaos into the regular functioning of the school system. What’s somewhat amusing about this is that in 2014, the fuss was all about Common Core – a curriculum backed by then-Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and the GOP General Assembly. Now, the problem is being caused by Wit and Wisdom, a curriculum backed by Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn. Yes, that very same Penny Schwinn who was appointed by Gov. Bill Lee – you know, the Bill Lee from Williamson County who is pretty conservative, just ask him.
Yes, the very same Bill Lee who signed into law a bill banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory.
But wait, Critical Race Theory is bad but Critical Race Theory is in Wit and Wisdom but Bill Lee is essentially forcing Wit and Wisdom on all school districts.
It’s almost like no one at the TN DOE or in the Gov’s office is paying that much attention?
I wonder how Moms for Liberty feels about Bill Lee who signs bills that ban Critical Race Theory and also supports efforts to enshrine Critical Race Theory in the curriculum? Or, maybe Lee just likes the seahorse porn?
It’s all very confusing.
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