Attack on public education identified

If you want to know what’s changed around here in the last couple of years, where this insurgence against public education is coming from, we’ve got some clues for you.

Largely, it’s from newcomers, people who refer to themselves as political refugees. Burned by experiences elsewhere and maybe inhaling mind-numbing exhaust from social media engines lately, they’re convinced that your neighborhood elementary school is a rat’s nest of indoctrination and your high school's a launching pad for automatons mass produced from critical race theory molds by doctor evils.

So, who are these people? Here’s one of them, a woman who posted the message below on social media last week. The organization is PAWS, or Parents Against Woke. Note how long she’s lived here.

Who am I and why PAWS?

I am a mom. I lived in WA state for the last 4.5 years and have been in CDA for about 8 weeks. I told anyone who asked why we moved that we “escaped to freedom!” I was HORRIFIED to find that my husband and I received freedom in CDA but my kids did not! I was SHOCKED to discover the heated battle within CDA schools.

I am passionate about the soon-to-be-open school board seats not being filled by those who are “woke” or who have forgotten that America is about individual freedom and justice — not social justice.

One of the reasons we left WA was because of what was coming up in the schools. Here in CDA we haven’t seen Comprehensive Sex Ed (CSE) but if people like Swingrover are elected to the school board I cannot be certain that CSE will stay out of our schools…

Believe me when I say this stuff is scary. MY kid, MY parental rights. Don’t they dare tread on me! Stand with PAWS and rail against all things “woke” in our schools, most especially our school board.

This is one of at least two local “parent” groups working to ensure the three least qualified Coeur d’Alene School Board candidates are elected Nov. 2.

The damage wrought by agenda-driven transplant voters and candidates with no real knowledge of or sweat equity in the community goes deeper than the school board. It reaches into the classrooms, where teachers are struggling against a relentless pandemic and need all the public support citizens can muster. Without that support in all its forms, the students will suffer.

Experience matters. Qualifications matter. Building up rather than tearing down is the goal.

Coeur d'Alene School Board candidates Lisa May, Lindsey Swingrover and Rebecca Smith are builders, not destroyers.