Dear Editor,
Something rather alarming has come to my attention, which (if it is true) certainly spells trouble for parents and school children alike in the coming year. I will present what I have learned, and I sincerely hope that The Press will give the matter (which is quickly becoming urgent) a penetrating attention and inform their readers of the facts of the matter. Some may not be aware of what is going on behind closed doors.
Here is what I have heard:
The reports from every school for how schools will open next year in South Carolina is due on June 24th. Evidently, there is a meeting to discuss just what measures will be reinstated and which measures will be thrown out – measures like masks, social distancing, sanitizing, etc.
There is a “parent committee” that is selected to speak to the school board on behalf of the parents. In Lexington county, this meeting is scheduled for June 14th – and parents are only just learning about the existence of this meeting. I wonder when the meeting for Colleton county is to be held? I am hearing that there has been a great deal of secrecy about this meeting in Lexington, as though the school boards are anxious to keep the parents from interfering in the way the school children are to be treated. I suppose that is un-surprising, especially when on considers the recent behavior of certain school boards regarding whether or not they will comply with the Governor’s latest mandate.
(Lesson to the reader: when the governing authorities make a rule you don’t like, label it as “unclear” and “ambiguous” and keep right on doing whatever you like – remembering, of course, to call it an “issue of safety”. Since this method is working so well on a local school level, it seems to me that it should work equally on a local personal level. Or perhaps the local authorities are just waiting to be ‘warned’ and then ‘fined’ for “failure to comply” with our Governor’s most recent mandate.)
If you would like to be involved in the decision-making process regarding how school children will be treated next year, and how your ESSER funds will be spent, you must act quickly! Contact your school principal via email and copy the entire school board. You might even want to call them to make sure the emails are going through. I have heard that you must request permission to be involved – submit your name officially, and do not take “no” for an answer. The meeting in question is a public one, so there should be a way for the public to participate.
I would like to reiterate that I do not know how to verify this information – but surely someone among the readers of The Press have a way to find out. I hope that The Press will act quickly to look into this matter and publicize the results. If it is true that the school system is once again trying to cut parents out of the decision-making loop for their own children, that would be infamous! The school boards are not God and God did not give these children to the school boards. Interestingly, it is the parents themselves that are putting the children in the power of the school boards. Perhaps it is time to change that.
Perhaps, parents, you will wish to consider other ways to school your children next year. (Governor McMaster passed bill H3925 that removed the 12-month waiting period for homeschool children to participate in school sports for this coming year.) Certainly many parent / student teams have become pros at online courses during this past year. I would encourage everyone to look at into the options of private school, charter school, and homeschool. If you are weary of battling every step of the way for your child’s rights, maybe you’d like to withdraw your student from the public school system and give them an education that involves learning useful things, not oxygen deprivation and destructive things like critical race theory.
I encourage you each and every one to look into this matter. Contact your school, contact your principal, contact your school board – and keep at it until you get answers. There is not much time before June 24th, and the battles you win this month you will (hopefully!) not have to fight when school commences later.
Sincerely,
Mandy Burdick
