Shall we?

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you are concerned about the district’s approaches to issues of DEI and SEL, the politicization of the Covid 19 virus in our district, the stifling of viewpoint diversity in our schools, and the district’s failures in transparency, communication and accountability to the public on these and other matters,

If you believe in the value of intellectual diversity and of living in a liberal culture that encourages the free exchange of ideas and maintains an expectation of reasoned arguments and evidence, and

If you believe it is immoral and illiberal for people to use the public school system to force a certain set of political values on impressionable children behind their parents’ backs,

It is time to stand up.

Here is how to start:

1. Attend the monthly DCS open forums and board meetings to find out what and how decisions are being made. (You can also watch the livestream here.). You can also speak at the open forums and board meetings. Email me and I will help you work out the details - crackerjackchan@gmail.com

2. Join local FB parent groups such as Fed Up Parents- Ohio, Moms for Liberty - Franklin County, Franklin County School Parents for Traditional Education, Protect Ohio Children - Central, and Ohio Parents’ Rights in Education to make some new friends, learn more information and share strategies.

3. Email Tyler Wolfe, the DCS SEL director - wolfe_tyler@dublinschools.net

   Ask questions about your child’s SEL program. Ask why such programming is needed. Ask to see the data. Ask how much time is taken out of your child’s day to work on SEL programming. Ask exactly what academic training is being replaced by SEL. Ask to see all of the surveys your child has been given. Ask to see the SEL curriculum that your child is being taught. Ask to see SEL teacher training materials.

   All of this information is public and you must be given access.

4. Email Dr. Bailey, Executive DCS Executive Director of Teaching and Learning - bailey_tonya@dublinschools.net

   Get involved. Tell her your ideas about how to help the DEI and SEL initiatives in our district. It does not have to be progressive DEI/SEL or no DEI/SEL. There are alternative ideas and programs where we could all meet in the middle.

   Examples:

   Moral Courage College - https://irshadmanji.com/learn-moral-courage/
   (Achieving diversity without division.)
   
   The Equiano Project -  https://www.theequianoproject.com

   (Facilitates conversations about and promotes the values of freedom, common humanity and universalism.)

5. Email Doug Baker, DCS public records officer - baker_doug@dublinschools.net

   This is how you access DCS public records. Training materials, your child’s curriculum, surveys, etc, are all open to you. All you have to do is ask.*

   Remember, parents must be given the opportunity to review and opt their child out of lessons regarding controversial topics. Failure to follow this procedure is a violation of board policy. See DCS Board policy po2240.

6. Email Brian Kern, DCS CFO/treasurer - kern_brian@dublinschools.net

   Ask him how our district is spending its money. You have the right to know.

7. Contact Transparent Education - a local Dublin group on a mission for transparency in our schools - with any questions, concerns, or information. (They will keep your identity anonymous.) Help keep the district accountable.

8. Email the superintendent and board members to let them know your concerns. Tell them you expect them to lead with trust, accountability and transparency and, at the very least, to follow the their own board policies.

   See some topic ideas further below.

   John Marschhausen - marschhausen_john@dublinschools.net,

   Diana Rigby - rigby_diana@dublinschools.net,

   Scott Melody -melody_scott@dublinschools.net,

   Chris Valentine - valentine_chris@dublinschools.net,

   Lindsay Gillis - gillis_lindsay@dublinschools.net,

   Tiffany DeSilva - desilva_tiffany@dublinschools.net

9. Volunteer at your child’s school. Try to make friends with those who disagree with you. Let us start seeing one another as fellow human beings who disagree - not enemies to silence and destroy.

Email Topic Ideas

If you contact DCS administrators, teachers and/or staff, consider asking them to do the following:

• to adhere to the Ohio State Board of Education’s Resolution 13 which condemns any standards, curriculum, or training programs for students, teachers, or staff that seek to divide or to ascribe circumstances or qualities, such as collective guilt, moral deficiency, or racial bias, to a whole race or group of people; 

• to reject all DEI and SEL initiatives that focus on activism, identity groups and political power dynamics instead of the individual, their unique experiences and their particular difficulties;

• to clearly define all DEI terms used in district resolutions and trainings, including:  diversity, equity, inclusion, critical race theory, antiracism, social justice, “doing the work,” and systemic racism;

• to explain Dr. Marschhausen’s language from the February 2021 anti-racism conference in which he stated that those who disagreed with his version of DEI and SEL programs are “disgusting” and “the resistance;”

• to ensure that the district’s SEL program, including related surveys, recognizes the rights of parents under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment and is not in violation of the Protection of Pupil’s Rights Amendment, 20 U.S. Code § 1232h;

• to ensure that district staff and teachers are not in violation of Board policies;

• to acknowledge that district teachers do not have First Amendment protection for speech issued as part of their official duties (Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006));

• to remove all political activism from our classrooms and virtual classroom spaces;

• to require teachers and staff to provide public disclosure of materials, including lesson plans, websites, books, and other materials used for parents review if there will be class or school-wide content, discussions, or assignments related to controversial issues as defined by Board policy po2240;

• to ensure that any teacher who is in continual violation of the board’s policies, including, but not limited to policy po2240, policy ag3231A, poag3122 and policy po3210, is appropriately disciplined;

• to provide public disclosure of all information surrounding current and planned SEL programming for our district, including:  what specific values and needs of our community require a universal SEL program, the short and long term SEL goals for each student and school in our district, the SEL surveys and curriculums used, other SEL resources used and needed to sustain program implementation, competing interests, funding needed for training and implementation, the amount of time spent on every SEL survey and SEL classroom instruction, the extent that SEL initiatives and programming take away from academic learning, how the SEL program is monitored, how SEL outcomes are determined and clearly advertised parental opt-outs;

• to ensure that teacher trainings regarding DEI and SEL be evidence-based, allow for alternative perspectives and critiques of polices and practices, and do not coerce teachers or staff into affirmations of creeds in which they do not believe;

• to immediately make masks OPTIONAL throughout our entire district;

• to provide a thorough and evidence-based cost/benefit analysis regarding the current or any future mask mandate in our schools, including the effect it is having on our students’ health and education;

• to include in the district weekly Covid updates: how many students and staff had actual symptoms, were hospitalized and/or died;

• to provide an accounting of how much federal and/or state funding the district receives in relation to its Covid-19 policies and how those funds are being used;

• to provide every district parent or guardian, via email or regular mail, information regarding how to opt their child out of the district’s mask mandate;

• to express its unwavering commitment to excellence in education for all, education that empowers each student to reach his or her full potential without prejudice or respect to race, ethnicity, or creed;

• to emphatically affirm the primary place of academics in our district's K-12 public schools.

* You can use this note when you ask for certain documents from Doug Baker:

Please consider this email a public records request pursuant to R.C. 149.43 et. seq.  Please provide the requested documents by _______(usually about 2 weeks out).  If you do not intend to provide any of the requested documents, please provide a citation to the Ohio Revised Code section or Ohio Administrative Code section which exempts the documents from disclosure.