Gov. Brad Little (R) came through for the families of Idaho last Thursday morning by signing House Bill 93, the <a href="https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2025/legislation/h0093/">Parental Choice Tax Credit bill</a>, into law shortly before the 11:46 a.m. deadline. Idaho now has a school choice program for the first time in the state’s history.
The bill enacts a $50 million private school choice tax credit program with all schoolchildren statewide eligible. Idaho becomes the 14th state in the nation to enact universal (or near-universal) school choice, joining Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia.
Upon signing the bill, Gov. Little <a href="https://gov.idaho.gov/pressrelease/gov-little-signs-house-bill-93-creating-the-parental-choice-tax-credit-program/">declared</a>, “With the passage of the $50 million Parental Choice Tax Credit program, Idaho boasts even more abundant schooling options for Idaho students and families.”
Early in February, the state House passed the bill by a vote of <a href="https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2025/legislation/h0093/">42-28</a>, providing hope to parents that Idaho may finally see school choice become a reality. The longtime Republican-controlled state had been void of any form of private school choice, resembling its Democratic-controlled West Coast neighbors of Washington, Oregon, and California.
On February 16, President Donald Trump weighed in with strong support by <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114015581630558522">posting</a> on Truth Social: “Congratulations to Governor Brad Little, and Idaho Legislators, who are fighting to bring School Choice to their beautiful State. $50 Million Dollars to empower parents to provide the very best Education for their child – GREAT news for Idaho families. This Bill, which has my Complete and Total Support, MUST PASS!”
Then, on February 19, the Idaho Senate voted <a href="https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2025/legislation/h0093/">20-15</a> in favor of the bill, which sent it to the Governor’s desk for signature.
Yet, in uncanny measure for a red state governor, who already had the votes from the legislature and public support from the President of the United States, Gov. Little signaled it was not a given that he would sign the bill.
Before the bill reached his desk on February 21, Gov. Little’s Office had quickly placed an automatic voice message for all incoming calls. The message instructed callers to press one if the call relates to House Bill 93. From there, the voice recording stated that the Governor’s Office was only receiving calls from Idaho residents and only one call per household. It continued, “If you would like Gov. Little to sign House Bill 93, please press one. If you would like Gov. Little to veto House Bill 93, please press two.”
Within a few days of the bill reaching the governor, Press Secretary Joan Varsek <a href="https://www.eastidahonews.com/2025/02/thousands-of-phone-calls-flood-governors-desk-as-school-choice-bill-awaits-his-decision/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the Governor’s office received “thousands of calls, emails, and voicemails on both sides in reference to H.B. 93.”
On Monday, the specific number of responses was released, which totaled <a href="https://www.idahoednews.org/state-policy/governors-office-received-more-than-32k-requests-to-veto-house-bill-93/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37,457</a>. Only 13.6% of those who reached out were in support of the governor signing the bill, while 86.4% were in opposition.
Yet, these last-minute cries for a veto were far from an accurate reflection of Idahoans’ support of school choice. A <a href="https://www.clubforgrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/securepdfs/2025/02/CfG_ID_ParentalChoiceTaxCredit_PollingMemo1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">February 11-12 poll</a> showed that “nearly three-in-five Idaho voters support passing the Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit bill.” The favorability of parental choice in education is nothing new as a 2024 poll of Idahoans by Boise State University found that <a href="https://www.boisestate.edu/sps/2024-idaho-public-policy-survey/#education" target="_blank" rel="noopener">49%</a> strongly favor or somewhat favor education funding following a student to a “private or religious” school whereas only <a href="https://www.boisestate.edu/sps/2024-idaho-public-policy-survey/#education" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41.1%</a> somewhat or strongly oppose it.
While the Governor may never reveal why he waited until just a few hours before the deadline to sign the bill or why his office set up the phone poll when the results didn’t sway him, parents with schoolchildren statewide are grateful nevertheless that he delivered.
With House Bill 93 now law, parents who opt for a different education avenue than the failing public school system will be eligible to receive a refundable tax credit of up to <a href="https://idahocapitalsun.com/2025/02/19/private-education-tax-credit-bill-heads-to-idaho-governor/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$5,000</a> per student. The amount will increase to <a href="https://idahocapitalsun.com/2025/02/19/private-education-tax-credit-bill-heads-to-idaho-governor/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$7,500</a> per student for those with special needs. Both amounts are thousands of dollars less than public schools spend per student, with unacceptable educational outcomes.
As evidenced by the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress Exam scores, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024219ID4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">60%</a> of fourth-grade and <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024219ID8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">69%</a> of eighth-grade public school students in Idaho are not proficient in math. Reading is worse, as <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024220ID4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">69%</a> of fourth-grade and <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024220ID8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">68%</a> of eighth-grade public school students in Idaho aren’t proficient. That’s nearly seven out of ten children failed by the system and robbed of their future.
Idaho is long overdue for allowing parents the freedom to select a better learning option for their children. Parents should not be bound to a failing system and left hoping their child will be one of the three out of the ten students who learn to read and perform math proficiently by the eighth grade.
The Office of the Governor website, on the “About Governor Brad Little” page, <a href="https://gov.idaho.gov/our-governor/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">states</a>: “Governor Little is committed to making decisions through one lens: the lens of ensuring Idaho’s children and grandchildren have the best opportunities to stay in Idaho and for the ones who have left to choose to return.
While it may have been in the eleventh hour, Gov. Little took action, recognizing that school choice is the solution to ensuring Idaho’s children and grandchildren have the best opportunities. Continuing course without an exit option for families from schools failing to provide students with proficiency would plague not only each child’s life but the state’s future. Not to mention, families with schoolchildren who have left Idaho would not have been incentivized to return when school choice abounds in other red states.
But thanks to a monumental signature last Thursday, that won’t be the case for the Gem State.
* * *
Dr. Keri D. Ingraham is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute, Director of the American Center for Transforming Education, and a Senior Fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Idaho State Capitol sunset, Boise

This State’s Governor Delivers On School Choice In The Eleventh Hour

Charter Schools

Education

Idaho

Opinion

Parental Rights in Education

Parents rights

Public Schools

Schools

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a relatively new term for most people, so it’s understandable that few are speaking out against this program. And while I’ve known for a long time that SEL is dangerous, I never sat down to dig into its underlying concepts until recently. It turns out that ignorance truly is bliss, because I was much more blissful before realizing the magnitude of SEL and the tentacles it sends into our children’s precious minds.
Researching SEL generally only turns up rave reviews and studies talking about how this program will solve the world’s problems. Many websites explain SEL as a method in which children learn to develop skills to self-regulate their emotions, develop healthy identities, build positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. Additionally, SEL programs always claim to be “evidence based,” creating “lifelong learners.”
Such headlines and websites make it hard to argue that SEL is a bad program for children. But peeping behind the curtain reveals that SEL is nothing more than unlicensed therapy shoved down your child’s throat on a daily basis in public school.
There are several organizations that push SEL, but <a href="https://casel.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning</a> (CASEL) is the front runner. Their website boasts that they have “been a leader of the SEL movement since first introducing the term over two decades ago.”
In the CASEL program, there are five standard competencies that students are measured against: (1) self-management, (2) responsible decision making, (3) relationship skills, (4) social awareness, and (5) self-awareness. All seamless topics, until you realize these are all about regulating emotions, which is 100% therapy.
Aside from being unlicensed therapy, SEL is a continuously improved program that aids schools in ensuring “equitable and optimal outcomes.” But in order for the program to be continuously improved upon, data is required — lots and lots of school and student data.
How do schools obtain this data? The answer is simple yet terrifying: surveys.
Some surveys require parental input, but most do not. I decided to spend time scrolling through my son’s school issued Chromebook and I quickly found a plethora of surveys on an app called &#8220;Quizizz.&#8221; After reviewing several of the surveys, it’s easy to see all these surveys are geared toward emotions – nothing to do with actual educational competencies such as reading or math.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-863477 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Student-1.png" alt="" width="512" height="179" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Student-1.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Student-1-300x105.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></div>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-863483 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-2.png" alt="" width="512" height="136" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-2.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-2-300x80.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></div>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-863487 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-3.png" alt="" width="512" height="139" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-3.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-3-300x81.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></div>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-863491 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-5.png" alt="" width="512" height="138" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-5.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-5-300x81.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></div>
<div id="attachment_863499" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-863499" class="wp-image-863499 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-7.png" alt="All screenshots credits: Quizizz.com" width="512" height="135" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-7.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-7-300x79.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" />All screenshots credits: Quizizz.com</div>
In addition to surveys focused on children’s emotional states, other surveys focus on school environment. Below is an example of a <a href="https://schoolguide.casel.org/resource/student-survey-how-i-feel-about-my-classroom-and-school/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">school survey</a> I found from CASEL in which students are asked a series of questions about how they feel about their classroom and school.
<div id="attachment_863501" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-863501" class="wp-image-863501 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-4.png" alt="Credit: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). https://casel.org/" width="512" height="437" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-4.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-4-300x256.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" />Credit: CASEL.org</div>
<div id="attachment_863503" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-863503" class="wp-image-863503 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-5.png" alt="Credit: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). https://casel.org/" width="512" height="436" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-5.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-5-300x255.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" />Credit: CASEL.org</div>
The questions themselves aren’t overly concerning – at least they aren’t asking kids if they are gender confused – but they are concerning in that they create doubt in a child’s mind. As <a href="https://www.abigailshrier.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Abigail Shrier</a> points out in her book, “Bad Therapy,” people are not overly happy beings. If we are constantly thinking about our emotional state, it eventually leads us to realize that we are unhappy, which leads to more serious mental health issues.
With that in mind, imagine how a child would feel after completing this survey, realizing they responded “disagree” on questions that their friends agreed with. The potential damage from a simple survey could have serious impacts on young children – all while the parent is clueless the survey is even happening. How can parents help a child understand their poor feelings after completing the survey if parents aren’t even aware of the survey in the first place?
SEL advocates claim these programs have positive and long-lasting impacts on the student’s and school’s success. They suggest that SEL improves academics, reduces negative social behaviors such as bullying, and creates positive school environments. But one of the major issues with this logic is that life will not always be a “positive climate,” so why are we fixated on children growing up in an environment they will never experience in real life?
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At its core, SEL is nothing more than social engineering and group think – make kids believe they must take control of their natural emotional reactions and project a calm, “approved” behavior to not hurt another person’s feelings. This is what I call “forced tolerance and acceptance training.” I remind my son daily that “tolerance is not a Commandment” therefore we are not called by God to tolerate beliefs and behaviors that we believe to be anti-Christian.
What happens when these SEL competencies conflict with the values of parents and religious teachings? What happens when children suddenly realize they have internal conflict between SEL teachings and those of their parents or church? How do kids resolve those feelings?
The reality is that our kids will grow up and realize the world doesn’t care about a “positive climate.” Real life is tough and it doesn’t stop because your feelings get hurt. Sadly, SEL is making our children emotionally weak, meaning they will likely crack at the slightest sign of conflict. This is exactly what Abigail Shrier documented in her book “Bad Therapy.” Children are less socially engaged than children 10+ years ago due to fear of failing.
I personally believe SEL results in major confusion for children, which ultimately is feeding the increased mental health issues we’re seeing in children. Mental health programs were not an option when I grew up. We had actively engaged parents, less violence in schools and higher graduation rates.
Maybe instead of taking billions of dollars from the federal government for these so-called mental health programs, the Department of Education should start restricting SEL in our schools. SEL is not the answer to what is plaguing our children – more parental participation and less government involvement is the answer.
* * *
Emily Jones is a native of North Alabama and leads the Madison County Chapter of Moms for Liberty. She also hosts a podcast titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@rightsideradio459/videos" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Controversial Mom</a> on YouTube.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Students raise their hands during class

Why ‘Social Emotional Learning’ Is Nothing More Than Unlicensed Therapy

Why 'Social Emotional Learning' Is Nothing More Than Unlicensed Therapy

Children

Students

Therapy

Thanks to the overwhelming efforts of everyday American parents who have refused to bow to the radical Left, the war on Christmas seems to have gone cold.
In recent years, public fights and lawsuits over Christmas events and displays dominated the headlines every December. This season, however, they appear to have subsided.
Parents have bravely pushed back against woke propaganda in the schools, elected better leaders, and have fought for their children’s education over woke indoctrination.
Most teachers and administrators no longer want the hassle, the conflict, or the public attention and scrutiny that these disagreements bring. While in some aspects this is good news, the reality is the damage has already been done — the status quo implemented during the period of lawsuits and school board debates remains.
Students are treated to inoffensive and meaningless “holiday” and “winter” events that look more like low-octane paganism than anything actually believed by the critical mass of the student body.
Of course, this was the long-term goal all along. Even if the Left lost in the courts, in too many cases they won in the classrooms. Because most teachers and administrators don’t want the hassle, the end result has been the same as if they had actually won in the courts and the legislatures.
This is a tragedy for our children and for our culture. Instead, this should be an opportunity for educators and parents to share not only the tidings of the seasons, but also the importance of our country’s robust history of religious liberty.
Public schools, of course, are not meant to be a means of taxpayer-funded evangelization. At the same time, they should not be places where such voluntary discussions are stifled or drowned out by artificially inoffensive celebrations. They should not be an excuse for our educators to look away from the role that religious liberty played in our founding and what it means today. Many of our founders’ ancestors braved the difficult voyage across the Atlantic and carved out new lives in an uncertain and unforgiving wilderness, driven by the need to live out their beliefs in accordance with their consciences. There’s a reason the freedoms of conscience are the first to be included in our Bill of Rights, after all.
When we fail to teach children the foundational things, we do them a grave disservice. Children are going to take in values from whatever they are taught. They learn just as much from the absence of a thing as they do from the thing itself. Instead of learning that we live in a country where beliefs both matter and are respected, they learn to relegate them to the back of their minds and hearts as mere matters of taste and preference.
That’s no way to go through life, and it’s no way to form citizens who are ready to inherit the kind of republic our founders intended for them.
At the same time, America’s school children are still being instructed in values and beliefs from the front of the classroom, just not traditionally religious ones. For years, they’ve been instructed in Critical Race Theory and gender ideology, thanks to the dictates and incentives of the federal Department of Education. Now, that’s about to change.
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With a new administration, we have an opportunity to push out all of the woke, anti-American bureaucratic rot at the top of the national education system. Really, we should not have a national education system. The best way to address the problems coming from Washington would be to get rid of them altogether and eliminate the Department of Education like President Trump has promised.
In addition to creating a bureaucratic nexus to indoctrinate our kids from Washington, it has done absolutely nothing to improve education outcomes since its inception. Since Jimmy Carter established this indoctrination machine in 1980, every academic statistic has only declined. We need to return control of education back to the states, where parents are in the driver’s seat, not some D.C. bureaucrat dictating decisions from their ivory tower.
People forget this country — the greatest country in the history of the world — was built without a federal Department of Education. The minds who built this country and sustained it through its most trying times were educated in one-room schoolhouses. The generations who defeated the 20th century axis powers and put a man on the moon for the first time in human history were the product of state-run education systems. We do not need federal bureaucrats to flourish — we need parents to be empowered to help their children prosper. After all, students are the next leaders of our great nation. This Christmas season, we can start preparing them for it.
* * *
Ryan Walters is Superintendent of the Oklahoma State Department of Education. You can follow him on X: <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanWaltersSupt">@RyanWaltersSupt</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Christmas crib.

Thanks To Brave Parents, The War On Christmas Has Turned Cold 

Christmas

Critical Race Theory

Department of Education

Leftists

Oklahoma

School Boards

Woke Culture

There was a massive red wave last Tuesday night across the nation, and Texas was no exception. 
Texas Governor Greg Abbott took to <a href="https://x.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1854328594245312722" target="_blank" rel="noopener">X last week,</a> once again making his commitment to education freedom known: “Parents know their kids better than anyone, &amp; they want to put them on the best path to success.” He <a href="https://x.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1854328594245312722" target="_blank" rel="noopener">continued</a>, “With last night’s election results, we can provide school choice for every Texan.” 
Less than 90 minutes later, the governor <a href="https://x.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1854350583047802994" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> a pledge, “Texas will deliver school choice.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
School choice is supported by all demographics in Texas.
Texans of all backgrounds, including Black &amp; Hispanic parents, strongly support school choice.
School choice improves educational opportunities for minority &amp; low-income students.
Texas will deliver school choice. <a href="https://t.co/NOVfwA9jOP">pic.twitter.com/NOVfwA9jOP</a>
&mdash; Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) <a href="https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1854350583047802994?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Texas, known for freedom, has been an outlier among historically conservative states when it comes to the rights of dads and moms to have education options for their children outside of the public school system. This is despite only <a href="https://edchoice.morningconsultintelligence.com/texas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37%</a> of Texans thinking K-12 education in the local school district within Texas is headed in the right direction. 
Abbott’s commitment to empowering parents with education options is nothing new. He has advocated for school choice in the Lone Star State <a href="https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/advocates_praise_governor_abbotts_call_for_expanded_school_choice" target="_blank" rel="noopener">since 2017</a>. 
During the Texas fourth legislative special session in November 2023, the school choice effort died by an amendment to House Bill 1, which removed a school choice provision from the education spending bill by a House vote of <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/28/texas-primary-runoff-school-vouchers-abbott/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">84-63</a>. The 21-point defeat resulted from 21 Republican representatives from rural areas in the state voting with Democrats against school choice.
With the Texas legislative session convening only every other year, Abbott used the intervening time effectively to campaign to get those anti-school choice Republican representatives out of office and, in turn, elect pro-education freedom candidates.
The Texas primary election in March was successful to this end, as six Republican representatives who voted against school choice lost their seats. The March <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-houses-shift-to-the-right-expected-to-cause-contention-at-state-capitol/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">run-off election</a> resulted in another three Republican anti-school choice representatives getting voted out of office. 
Added to those numbers were <a href="https://www.discovery.org/education/2024/06/05/greg-abbott-went-to-war-for-school-choice-he-appears-to-have-won/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">five others</a> who forwent seeking reelection, knowing a reckoning was coming. Each of those representatives was replaced by a pro-education freedom candidate. A total of 14 seats were flipped from anti-school choice Republican representatives to education freedom champions. That 14-seat pick-up translates into a 28-point positive swing for school choice — giving Abbott the numbers needed in the Texas House to pass a sweeping school choice bill for families. The Texas Senate had not been the barrier.
The November 5 general election results are still coming in, but it has been <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/05/adam-hinojosa-morgan-lamantia-texas-senate-rio-grande-valley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that Republicans have flipped one Texas Senate seat, resulting in a <a href="https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2024/texas-2024-general-election-results/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20-11</a> Republican majority. The victorious Republican candidate Adam Hinojosa, referred to by the <a href="https://x.com/SchoolChoiceNow/status/1854161544239632650" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Federation of Children</a> as a “school choice champion,” is the <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/05/adam-hinojosa-morgan-lamantia-texas-senate-rio-grande-valley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first Republican</a> to win the Rio Grande Valley since Reconstruction. 
In the Texas House, similar results are still being reported, but it is currently anticipated that Republicans will flip two seats, making their majority <a href="https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2024/texas-2024-general-election-results/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">88-62</a>. It’s no surprise that Abbott is confident this time around — not just that it’s possible to enact education freedom in Texas, but it is probable with the new legislators. 
As of 2023, of the <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">52.1</a> million K-12 public school students in the United States, nearly <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5.7 million</a> lived in Texas. That translates to 11.88% of all students nationwide. Should Texas pass a universal school choice bill, that would increase the total number of public school students with school choice access in America from <a href="https://www.discovery.org/education/2024/10/03/historic-education-freedom-is-happening-and-it-is-worthy-of-a-celebration/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18.9 million</a> to 24.6 million — from <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/engage/educational-freedom-and-choice-hits-escape-velocity-end-of-session-wrap/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36.3%</a> to 47.21%. 
The benefits of education freedom are significant for each individual child, their family, and community. Additionally, widespread school choice programs <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/22/the-school-choice-programs-democrats-hate-have-saved-taxpayers-up-to-45-billion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">save a state enormous sums of money</a> because the funding provided to the family to take to an alternative education option is generally only one-third to half the amount public education spends per student. 
As Martin F. Lueken <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/school-choice-saves-taxpayer-dollars-education-policy-c4b32b6b?page=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in The Wall Street Journal, “a recent EdChoice <a href="https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/EdChoiceOct2024.pdf?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> of 48 school-choice programs across 26 states through 2022 estimates that school-choice programs generated cumulative net fiscal benefits for taxpayers worth between $19.4 billion and $45.6 billion.” That number is dramatically on the rise because, since that time, ten states have joined West Virginia and Arizona in signing universal or near-universal school choice into law. 
With the current K-12 public education spending on Texas students topping <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/state_fast_facts/texas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$70.6 billion</a> annually, massive savings will result in the years to come. Therefore, empowering parents with education freedom for their children is not only the right thing to do but also has positive fiscal benefits for the state’s bottom line. For Texas, that will be billions of dollars saved each year once Abbott’s persistent leadership in delivering school choice is across the finish line. 
The great news for Texas families is that the reality of education freedom could be merely months away.
 * * * 
<a href="https://www.discovery.org/p/ingraham/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Keri D. Ingraham</a> is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute, Director of the American Center for Transforming Education, and a Senior Fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

MixCollage-12-Nov-2024

Abbott Set To Deliver On Texas School Choice In 2025

Budget

Greg Abbott

School Choice

Texas

WASHINGTON, D.C. &#8212; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> on Friday told hundreds of moms from across the country that Democrat policies are harming children, and that a second Trump administration will prioritize the rights of parents.
He spoke for an hour at a conference organized by Moms For Liberty just two blocks from the White House, which some pledged to “fight like a mother” to make his home once again.
Trump said that the Biden-Harris open border policies, which include letting any child across the border as long as they are “unaccompanied” by a parent, cruelly lead to Hispanic children being placed in vulnerable situations.
“Massive percentages of women are being raped and beat to hell coming up in the caravans,” he said. “Mothers give their daughters big bottles of birth control because they know it’s bad coming up.”
The loophole for “unaccompanied minors” persists even under Biden’s recent executive order tightening the border, and Harris’ Democratic National Convention platform reaffirms its commitment to it. Trump suggested that the exemption induced family separation, encouraging children to split off from their parents and come to the U.S. alone, where they are at the whims of traffickers. “We’re getting them to come up, telling them you’ll get free [things],” he said.
Nearly 500,000 “unaccompanied minors” have crossed the border, and Biden eliminated DNA testing requirements and reduced vetting, sending them to live with unrelated “sponsors.” About a third of children <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/whistleblowers-detail-how-85000-unaccompanied-minors-went-missing-after-biden-admin-dropped-them-off-with-sponsors">go missing</a> after being sent to live with sponsors.
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1724211156439000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2-L2DitSaIUj5wz8v0bgxx">Tickets for “Am I Racist?” are on sale NOW! Buy here for a theater near you.</a>
Trump said American children also suffer from the migrant influx. “They’re going into the classroom, carrying disease and they don’t even speak english. It’s crazy,” he said. “I thought New York had no money, yet they’re spending billions of dollars on illegal immigrants. … When you think that 21 million people came into our country, that’s bigger than New York. Nobody can take that.”
Trump said foreign leaders are getting rid of criminals in their society by dumping them on the U.S., and that American youth are “being killed by illegal aliens” &#8212; two words he said Democrats don’t want people to use because “they want to take away all the words so you can&#8217;t talk about the subject.” He said that two days ago, he was at the border with parents who had lost a child due to migrant crime.
He said he believes 85-90% of the country does not want to be flooded with illegal immigrants, and that he will deport them. “The highest deportation was a pretty moderate guy, but he hated that our country was being swamped, Dwight Eisenhower,” he said.
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Trump said he would restore rights to parents, citing the story of the Loudoun County transgender rape coverup broken by The Daily Wire in which the victim’s father was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/glenn-youngkin-grants-absolute-pardon-to-loudoun-dad-arrested-at-school-board-meeting">prosecuted</a>.
“You have these parents that get in fistfights at school board meetings, and they mean well. Especially in Loudoun County,” he said. “The parents truly love the kids. Some of these people on the boards, I think they don’t like the kids very much, with what they’re doing. You have to give the rights back to the parents. This administration, the FBI goes after the parents. We’ll change that on the first day.”
He also said he would ensure that girls can compete in sports without being thwarted by mediocre boys. “Who would want men playing in women’s sports?” he asked. “The Olympics was the best thing I’ve seen because you really see when these boxers come out, it was so ridiculous … it’s so demeaning to women.”
Parents are a key constituency for Republicans as Democrats have rapidly politicized public education, even fighting against merit and rigor — such as gifted and talented schools — in the name of “equity.”
Trump was introduced by Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who attributed his own success to his mother vigilantly monitoring his treatment at the hands of New York’s public schools.
Moms for Liberty formed three years ago out of anger at extended school closures pushed by Democrats at the behest of teachers unions. It is now widely accepted that the moms’ position was the correct one.
Democrats have sought to simply act as if the misstep never occurred, but many at the Moms for Liberty convention believed that children are still suffering from a year of lost learning, and that Democrats should pay a price at the ballot box.
Yet one person wore a mask to Trump’s speech in 2024: a reporter camped in a press area, who was also one of the few not to stand for the national anthem.
<div id="attachment_789047" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-789047" class="size-full wp-image-789047" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1920" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />A journalist wears a mask to be around conservatives in 2024</div>

Trump at Moms for Liberty

Trump Makes His Case To Parents In Moms For Liberty Speech, Citing Effects To Children Of Open Borders, Transgender Ideology

Byron Donalds

Donald Trump

Elections

Immigration

Loudoun County

Politics

A healthcare organization that operates clinics inside Seattle public schools says it can now offer “gender-affirming” hormone treatment to children, emails from a health center program manager reveal.
Emails obtained by The Daily Wire reveal that Neighborcare Health, a healthcare organization that runs clinics in middle and elementary schools in the Seattle Public Schools district, announced in January 2023 that hormone treatments were now included in the “gender-affirming care” it could offer.
“The Neighborcare Health team wanted to share an exciting new update to our School-based Health Center services,” the email from a Program Manager for Neighborcare Health, which was obtained by Parents Defending Education through a public records request, reads. “Our program will begin offering comprehensive, evidence-based, gender-affirming care services to our students and families who need them.&#8221;
The change meant that the group could now give hormone treatments to children, it explained. &#8220;While our School-based Health Centers have long offered a continuum of gender-affirming care services including supportive student counseling, promotion of social identity, and health education, this step will allow us to begin offering families access to important medical interventions including hormone treatments,” it states.
The offerings mark one of the boldest efforts to create what Manhattan Institute Fellow Leor Sapir has <a href="https://x.com/LeorSapir/status/1561733046507917318">dubbed</a> the &#8220;school-to-clinic pipeline&#8221; whereby young school children are encouraged to undergo irreversible medical interventions that seek to change their sex.
Neighborcare, which runs 14 different <a href="https://neighborcare.org/services/school-based/">school-based clinics</a> in Seattle Public Schools and Vashon Island School District, states that its mission is to &#8220;help students do better in school by working to address health concerns, prevent serious illness, and promote healthy lifestyles.&#8221; The clinic does not, however, openly admit to providing so-called &#8220;gender-affirming care,&#8221; which is conspicuously absent from its &#8220;services offered&#8221; list despite announcing that it would begin offering hormone therapies at some of its school-based clinics over a year ago.
The company official stated in the email that its foray into hormone treatment for children would initially be to a pilot program and that the administration of the irreversible drugs would only occur with parental approval.
“These services will be a small pilot available to students and families within the existing schools we serve,” the email went on to state, also noting that hormone therapy will only be administered to those who have the approval of parents or legal guardians.
The company defended its decision to offer cross-sex hormone therapy to children in a comment to The Daily Wire, claiming that it was a form of &#8220;life-saving care.&#8221;
&#8220;Gender-affirming care in its many forms represents life-saving care for many of the youth and their families who choose it,&#8221; spokeswoman Mary Schilder told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Neighborcare Health offers care for transgender and non-binary students that align with best practices defined by regional and national pediatric care authorities and is aimed at meeting needs expressed by the students and families we serve.&#8221;
Rhyen Staley, a researcher for Parents Defending Education, which obtained the documents through a public records request, called the administration of irreversible treatments to children in schools &#8220;unconscionable.&#8221;
&#8220;It is deeply concerning that the institutions Americans have traditionally trusted with keeping children healthy and safe are now giving them access to harmful medical practices,” Rhyen Staley, a researcher for Parents Defending Education, told The Daily Wire. “It is unconscionable that this is happening within the K-12 school setting.&#8221;
A separate email from an unidentified individual working in public health for Seattle and King County flagged the Neighborcare Health email to people associated with the Seattle Children’s Hospital and Seattle Schools.
“I know many of you are already providing different levels of care and support for your students around gender and I simply wanted to share this,” the email states, before pointing out that “there is the possibility of media interest” in the program.
Though medical institutions that turn a profit by administering irreversible cross-sex hormones to children claim that transgender medical interventions are &#8220;life-saving,&#8221; European countries to the left of the United States have recently restricted the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy. <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230208-sweden-puts-brakes-on-treatments-for-trans-minors">Sweden</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/13/uk/england-nhs-puberty-blockers-trans-children-intl-gbr/index.html">England</a> have both taken steps to limit the availability of medical interventions that seek to change the sex of patients. The Scandinavian country stopped hormone therapy for minors with few exceptions while England’s National Health Service stopped prescribing puberty blockers.
Some of the most vocal advocates in favor of administering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children actually receive funding from the very same <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pfizer-sponsored-group-pushing-child-transgenderism-profits-from-puberty-blockers-hormone-therapy">pharmaceutical companies</a> that manufacture the drugs that are given to children suffering from gender dysphoria, Daily Wire investigations have revealed.
Seattle Public Schools, which did not respond to a request for comment, has pushed medical gender transitions more blatantly than perhaps any other school district, but it is far from the only one to encourage children to undergo irreversible medical interventions intended to modify one’s sex.
The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-how-one-of-americas-largest-school-districts-became-a-pipeline-for-a-trans-youth-clinic">revealed</a> that the Los Angeles Unified School District reached out to a transgender youth clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles after staff found out that a student was considering going on testosterone therapy. The district, which frequently pushes transgenderism on students through its lesson plans, book readings, and spirit day celebrations, had just recently hosted members of the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles to advertise the transgender clinic’s offerings to parents.
Conservative journalist and activist Chris Rufo <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/unholy-alliance">revealed</a> that public schools in Chicago teamed up with the Lurie Children&#8217;s Hospital of Chicago to promote pro-transgender curriculum and &#8220;gender-affirming&#8221; books aimed at children.

Syringe

EXCLUSIVE: Health Centers At Seattle Public Schools Offer ‘Gender-Affirming’ Hormone Therapy To Children

K-12

trans

Transgender

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/parents-rights" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Parental rights</a> group Parents Defending Education released a report on Monday warning about the widespread adoption of “restorative justice” disciplinary practices at schools, saying that the new policies may lead to dangerous and disruptive classrooms.
The <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/list-of-school-districts-using-restorative-practices/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> found that there are at least 18,808 schools across 506 school districts with restorative justice policies in place. Restorative justice policies in practice often focus on conversations between offender and victim in contrast to more traditional discipline techniques like suspension and expulsion.
&#8220;Restorative justice has proven to be a disaster for school safety and school culture,” Erika Sanzi, the director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, told The Daily Wire. “Are there minor infractions for which it can work? Sure. But in an effort to juke the discipline statistics and feel good about themselves, school districts have allowed their schools to get out of control in terms of defiance, disruption and even violence. It can&#8217;t continue.&#8221;
According to the report, there are at least 11,540,428 students who go to schools with restorative justice policies. Some of these students go to schools in conservative states like Alabama, Texas, and Tennessee.
“Restorative justice is a philosophy for student discipline where reconciliation between the offender and the victim is the ultimate goal,” the report explained. “In many school districts, restorative justice has REPLACED exclusionary discipline in schools, so the response to a violent action in class is not a suspension or expulsion, but to clear the classroom and have a restorative conference.”
Parents Defending Education found that districts in Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin, and Wyoming all used restorative justice techniques.
The state with the most districts by far was California, with at least 335 districts having some guide of restorative justice practice in place.
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“In restorative justice, reconciliation, not punishment, is the goal. The ‘Western’ view of crime and punishment is thought to be a byproduct of colonialism,” Parents Defending Education President Nicki Neily <a href="https://twitter.com/nickineily/status/1790372082573803976" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on X. “This approach to discipline is failing students, teachers, and families.”
The organization noted that its list is not comprehensive and that there could be more school districts with similar policies across the country.

Empty high school corridor with lockers lining the walls

Parents’ Rights Group Warns About New Disciplinary Technique Sweeping The Nation

U.S.

Virginia’s largest school division put a “sex therapist” who promotes “kinky” acts like BDSM — a form of physical abuse geared to those who are aroused by humiliation — in charge of deciding whether to heed parent complaints about books that may be inappropriate for children, The Daily Wire has learned.
Fairfax County School Board chair Karl Frisch, a gay activist who recently became chairman of the school board, appointed Laila Cooper, the sex therapist, to the Challenged Materials Interdepartmental Review Committee <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/goto?open&amp;id=CWPPMH65065D">on January 25</a>, according to public school board documents. The appointment put Cooper in position to assess any request received by the school district about books.
&#8220;This Committee is activated only if a Fairfax County or City resident, without a student enrolled in a school, submits a formal request to remove a book or other media from FCPS,&#8221; it explained. &#8220;If a request is received, committee members will review the request, read or view the material identified, evaluate and discuss the request, and submit an individual <a href="https://www.fcps.edu/aggregator/sources/16" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vote to uphold or deny removal</a> of the material from FCPS.”
The appointment of Laila Cooper, the sex therapist, is a provocative gesture intended to signal that although the school system <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CSMQ4Y674B1A/$file/R%203009.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">technically has a process</a> for registering complaints about obscene materials, such complaints are likely to be essentially thrown in the trash, parents told The Daily Wire.
In a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/laila-cooper-fairfax-va/127057" target="_blank" rel="noopener">professional bio of Cooper</a>, she states, “I work from an affirming and social justice approach with the LGBTQIA community and people of color, and I am kink- and non-monogamy informed and affirming&#8230; My work is focused on sex and gender issues (including transgender issues), sexual orientation, kink/BDSM, and interpersonal relationships (including couples, polyamory, family dyads).”
Cooper’s work, according to her <a href="https://archive.is/5kfQ2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>, “includes but is not limited to: navigating non-monogamy (i.e., polyamory, open relationships, swingers, monogamish, throuples, etc.), kinky sex (e.g., BDSM, group sex, fetish), painful sex, difficulty with orgasm, erection issues, shame and anxiety related to sex, out of control sexual behavior (aka sex addiction), sexual orientation, and gender transition.  I work with all genders, sexualities, and relationship formats from an informed, non-judgmental, affirming, and celebratory stance.”
Her practice also includes providing paperwork that people can use to get gender surgery. “As ethically possible, I provide all documentation necessary to do this following a consultation with you,” she says. “I work from an informed consent model, wherein my goal is to advocate for and help you achieve the care you need and desire.”
She also writes doctor&#8217;s notes intended to help illegal immigrants convince a court that they need asylum. “As a longstanding advocate for the human rights of immigrants, I offer psychological evaluations (in English and Spanish) that accompany other legal documentation for asylum, human trafficking, and other immigration-related cases,” her website says.
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After The Daily Wire asked Frisch and Cooper about the appointment, Cooper said she has stepped down from the committee to avoid political damage to Frisch.
“Yes I was recently appointed to the Challenged Materials Committee,&#8221; Cooper said in an email. &#8220;I applied for the committee as an involved mother who cares about the school community and, in particular, about access to diverse reading materials. Although that was the extent of my discussion with Mr. Frisch regarding my desire to be on the committee, I understand that my professional background is causing distraction from the important work being done by him and other members of the school board; thus I have stepped down from the role. My work as a licensed clinical psychologist is unrelated to my desire to be on the committee,” she said in an email.
The appointment has not previously been reported, and she did not say when she tendered her resignation.
Frisch did not respond to a request for comment, and Fairfax County Public Schools spokeswomen Hellen Lloyd and Julie Moult did not reply to a request for the names of current committee members.
Brooke Corbett, a Fairfax mother, said she feels “like FCPS school board members live in an alternate reality” for thinking that out of all the county’s 1.4 million residents, someone who makes their living “affirming” “kinks” would be the right person to decide whether residents are correct to think a book is inappropriate. 
“A ‘professional’ with such credentials, assigned to a panel to adjudicate what is deemed appropriate material flagged by concerned taxpayers, will most certainly be biased in the determination of what’s appropriate to sit on our kids’ school library shelves, what’s presented to them in the classrooms and assemblies, in Family Life Education/sex-ed instruction, and what’s sanctioned to be presented in after-school clubs,” Corbett told The Daily Wire.
“The biases someone like Cooper brings to this role promote and enable grooming behavior of our children, plain and simple. It makes me suspicious and want to know what is Frisch’s motivation in supporting individuals and groups who normalize sexually explicit, disordered, adult practices to children… I hope all parents and concerned citizens take note of Frisch’s decisions,” she added.
Frisch is a career Democrat operative who in 2019 ran for school board despite the fact that he had no children and no college degree, the book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Race-Bottom-Uncovering-Destroying-Education/dp/0063056720/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Race to the Bottom</a> reported. After he was elected to office, his Twitter account, on which he often posted school board content, followed multiple accounts dedicated to tweeting hardcore pornography, it found. 
When he was sworn in this year for his second term, he took his oath of office with his hand not on a Bible, but on a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/school-board-member-sworn-in-on-stack-of-gay-porn-instead-of-bible" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stack of books depicting gay sex</a>.
Sexual orientation is a primary focus of his interest in policy, the book reported. In 2012, he warned that if Mitt Romney won the presidency, Romney would modify the U.S. Constitution and force gays to leave the country.
He won his seat on the suburban school board in 2019 by nationalizing a local race, raising money from leftist activists across the country by invoking gay issues. Tapping people in places like California to fund a school board race in Virginia, he raised $183,000, far more than anyone had ever raised for the position. One school board fundraising event advertised an appearance by a drag queen.
In 2021, a Fairfax review committee voted to keep <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/american-library-association-transgender-gender-queer-comics-schools">“Gender Queer”</a> in schools, claiming that the cartoon is “scientifically based” and that its images, including of a woman performing oral sex on a transgender person, “do not qualify as obscene.” In the book, the narrator visits the headquarters of a porn company that produced films called “Public Disgrace,” “Bound in Public,” and “Hardcore Gangbangs.” The book’s author, Maia Kobabe, said she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/author-of-infamous-gender-queer-book-i-dont-recommend-this-book-for-kids" target="_blank" rel="noopener">does not recommend it</a> for children.
A review committee said that the book Lawn Boy — which includes the words, “What if I told you I touched another guy’s d***? What if I told you I sucked it? I was ten years old, but it’s true. I sucked Doug Goble’s d**&#8221; — has “literary value as a narrative representing the <a href="https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/policies-regulations-and-notices/school-library-collections/library-books-challenge-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">perspective of a significant portion</a> of students in Fairfax County Public Schools.”
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Laila Cooper, left, was appointed to a committee by Fairfax school board chair Karl Frisch, right. (drlailacooper.com / YouTube)

Virginia’s Largest School District Put A ‘Kink-Affirming’ Bondage Specialist In Charge Of Reviewing Parent Complaints About Books

Virginia

A new survey found that nearly three out of every four Americans believe that parents should be able to opt their kids out of public school subjects they believe are immoral or objectionable.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty surveyed 1,000 American adults between September 28 and October 5 as part of its annual <a href="https://www.becketlaw.org/index/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Religious Freedom Index</a>, and the results suggest that transgender advocacy in schools is a losing proposition for Democrat politicians — at least if voters are paying attention.
In a consensus that is rare for any political issue, a whopping 74% of respondents agreed that “parents should be able to opt their children out of public school curriculum on gender and sexuality that violates their religious beliefs or that they believe is not age appropriate.”
That’s four percent higher than when the question was posed in 2021, at the height of the education culture war, suggesting that the Left has lost ground as more Americans have seen examples of public schools concealing radical ideas under the banner of social-emotional learning, sex-ed, and the like.
Only a third of respondents agreed with a position mirroring that backed by teachers unions and many Democrats, that “public schools are responsible for shaping the next generation of citizens and should have final say on what children are taught in school.”
The percentage who strongly (rather than somewhat) agree with the parental rights position has also solidified, jumping nine points from 2021.
Eighty percent disagreed that schools should “be allowed to hide information from parents about their child’s decision to adopt a new name, new pronouns, or begin a gender transition,” and 76% disagreed that “schools should be allowed to encourage children to transition their genders.”
The survey results were shared first with The Daily Wire. Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said that “Americans are making clear that no one can replace parents when it comes to raising children. That’s a heartening sign for the direction of our nation and for every parent who wishes to pass on values and virtues to their children.&#8221;
&#8220;Our nation is better when we allow parents to parent their children, not the government,” Windham said.
The findings come as school districts across the country act to the contrary.
In Montgomery County, Maryland, for example, the school board prohibited parents from removing their children from lessons on sexuality, specifically arguing that it was because so many parents wanted to do so that it would cause a disruption. District materials tell teachers that if a parent asks, “Can I keep my child home when students are learning about LGBTQ+ topics?,” they should discuss “equity” and then say, “Parents always have the choice to keep their student(s) home while using these texts; however, it will not be an excused absence.” (The same district recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/principal-was-proud-of-students-for-protesting-against-israel-on-kristallnacht-emails-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gave excused absences</a> for students who wanted to protest Israel on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.)
The state of California, meanwhile, paid a nonprofit that encourages kids to identify as genders such as “foxgender,” and teaches schools <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-awards-grant-to-nonprofit-encouraging-kids-to-identify-as-foxgender-teaching-schools-to-hide-it" target="_blank" rel="noopener">how to hide it</a>. That includes a six-page for on which pronouns to use around kids and whether school staff needs to hide their use of those pronouns from their parents. “It’s not always the case that caregivers are supportive of their child’s gender, their gender journey, in that case, if parents are not supportive or if the child is not out, that’s not necessarily someone who will be part of the gender support team,” said Director of Training Carla Pena at the group’s annual Gender Spectrum Family Conference last year.
And in Virginia, a mother sued her school district after it relentlessly asked her child about transitioning. The child did transition, the district concealed it from the mother, and she was then <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/maryland-refused-to-give-back-a-virginia-runaway-because-her-parents-misgendered-her-then-she-was-sex-trafficked-mother-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">trafficked to Baltimore and held by a registered sex offender</a>. A school counselor then allegedly testified in Baltimore court that the girl should remain in Baltimore — in a group home with at-risk boys — instead of being returned to her mother, speculating that the mother might be transphobic.
The survey results explain why issue of parental rights has become a flashpoint in the ongoing presidential election. Republican candidates this year have fashioned themselves as fierce defenders of parental rights in the classroom, with top contenders <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2023-03-14/trump-pushes-parental-rights-in-first-2024-campaign-visit-to-iowa">Donald Trump</a>, <a href="https://www.flgov.com/2022/03/28/governor-ron-desantis-signs-historic-bill-to-protect-parental-rights-in-education/#:~:text=Governor%20Ron%20DeSantis%20Signs%20Historic%20Bill%20to%20Protect%20Parental%20Rights%20in%20Education,-On%20March%2028&amp;text=SPRING%20HILL%2C%20Fla.,the%20upbringing%20of%20their%20children.">Ron DeSantis</a>, and <a href="https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2023/09/07/nikki-haley-spells-out-education-agenda--promises-to-give-parents-greater-voice">Nikki Haley</a> all promising to give parents more power if they win the presidency.

Montgomery County parents

Vast Majority Believe Parents Should Be Able To Opt Out Of Objectionable Curriculum, Rejecting Left’s View

Maryland

Religious Freedom

Not long after the Department of Justice mobilized the FBI against parents by citing a letter that painted the father of a Loudoun County, Virginia rape victim as a terrorist, an attorney from one of the department&#8217;s most corrupt branches is running for a seat on America’s most politicized school board on a platform that labels advocates for “parents&#8217; rights” as “extremists.”
While most federal employees shy away from any sort of political activity because of how it could erode credibility and violate the Hatch Act, Anne Donohue has run openly as a Democrat for the At-Large seat on Loudoun County’s school board.
On October 13, Donohue advertised a political event saying, &#8220;Are you tired of the so-called &#8216;Parents&#8217; Rights&#8217; extremists attacking our kids and public education? You&#8217;re not alone. Virginia moms have had enough.&#8221;
&#8220;<a href="https://www.mobilize.us/dpvasenatecaucus/event/579213/?emci=3d5075f9-9152-ee11-9937-00224832e811&amp;emdi=83963fba-f952-ee11-9937-00224832e811&amp;ceid=10710897&amp;fbclid=IwAR3g5ZRZlEfUTdkqXX386fXZx4Su02jw3fp7-p_7GM4zfVmDXA8i5R1bRvY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Join us tomorrow</a> for the All in for Leesburg rally!&#8221; she wrote in a campaign social media post, referring to and linking to a Democrat Party of Virginia event that said, &#8220;Join us at our coordinated office as we canvass for Russet Perry, Marty Martinez, and the rest of the Democrats up and down the ticket!&#8221;
&#8220;Help us GOTV to support our #LCPS School Board candidates! Ashburn Loudoun Democrats Leesburg Democrats Catoctin District Democrats of Loudoun County #election2023 #GOTV,&#8221; she wrote on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/anneforatlargeLCSB" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook</a> this week.
&#8220;#anneforatlarge #blueloudoun,&#8221; she wrote in another campaign post.
She has <a href="https://twitter.com/LibsOfLoudoun/status/1711945458652766595" target="_blank" rel="noopener">campaigned</a> with far-Left, George Soros-backed prosecutor Buta Biberaj during the middle of what is typically a workday, and she has door-knocked, attended fundraising events with, or lavished praise on the other Democrat candidates.
According to her bio at George Washington University, where she is a lecturer, Donohue is a high-ranking DOJ lawyer who now works for its Civil Division, but from 2014 to 2020 worked for the <a href="https://www.law.gwu.edu/anne-p-donohue" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Security Division</a>, including &#8220;as a Deputy Section Chief, where she wrote and supervised briefs and memoranda regarding the handling and use of information obtained pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (&#8216;FISA&#8217;).&#8221;
During that time period, the DOJ used FISA to wrongfully target Republicans, including falsifying evidence and lying in order to wiretap Donald Trump&#8217;s adviser, Carter Page.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-646195" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/fb2-461x576.png" alt="" width="461" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/fb2-461x576.png 461w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/fb2-240x300.png 240w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/fb2-768x959.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/fb2.png 1182w" sizes="(max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px" /></div>
On September 29, Donohue received a <a href="https://www.vpap.org/donors/455545-anne-pogue-donohue/">donation from the Democratic Party of Virginia</a> in the amount of $2,196, making it her second-largest donor, according to campaign finance filings. It was an &#8220;in-kind&#8221; donation in the form of &#8220;Mail production/postage.&#8221;
Donohue&#8217;s campaign has paid ActBlue Virginia, the Democrat fundraising operation, as well as Virginia Blue Star Printing, whose <a href="https://www.vabluestar.com/">mission</a> is to &#8220;provide high-quality printing and mail services on time &amp; on target to Democratic candidates.&#8221;
The Loudoun County Democrats held a &#8220;Barbie&#8217;s School Board Skate Party&#8221; to raise money for Donohue, writing, &#8220;Just $20 gets you in and adds a donation to be split among both women&#8230; Anne and Megan are running against some extreme candidates.&#8221;
The Loudoun Democrats also promised a May 17 event sponsored by &#8220;GenVoter Blue &amp; Ashburn Dems&#8221; where, according to pictures posted by the Democrat group, Donohue had a fundraising table.
According to the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/SOL/files/Political-Activities-Guidance_2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Department of Labor,</a> &#8220;a federal employee, regardless of position, may not solicit, accept, or receive partisan political contributions. For instance, federal employees are prohibited from: &#8230; forwarding, ‘liking’, or “favoriting” a solicitation for political contributions using social media or email; [or] asking for donations at a fundraising event.&#8221;
The brazen partisanship by a current DOJ official raised the eyebrows even of LCPS&#8217; former top lawyer Stephen DeVita, who wrote on Facebook: &#8220;This is an obvious partisan election. How is this not a violation of the Hatch Act?&#8221;
School board elections in Virginia are nominally nonpartisan, meaning a party identifier does not appear next to names on the ballot. But in practice, they are fully partisan, with official slates of Democrat and Republican candidates. The political parties hand out “sample ballots” outside the polls letting people know what names belong to which party.
In 2021, the <a href="https://www.governmentattic.org/49docs/OSCrptsHatchActAdvWarn_2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Office of Special Counsel (OSC)</a>, which polices the Hatch Act, wrote that government officials can run in non-partisan elections, but only if they are actually nonpartisan, not just nominally nonpartisan. &#8220;Usually, a nonpartisan election is designated as such by state or local law. The law, however, creates only a rebuttable presumption that an election is nonpartisan. Evidence showing that partisan politics actually entered a candidate&#8217;s campaign may rebut this presumption,&#8221; it wrote.
&#8220;The following are examples of activities that could introduce partisan politics into an election: participating in and winning a party caucus; soliciting contributions from a partisan political group or political party; seeking and advertising a political party&#8217;s endorsement; or receiving party support in the form of supplies (e.g., wooden stakes for signs, bulk mail permit), campaign publications (e.g., flyers, posters) or use of party headquarters,&#8221; it continued.
According to OSC, &#8220;​The penalty structure for violations of the Hatch Act by federal employees includes removal from federal service.”
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-646197" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/fb1-517x576.png" alt="" width="517" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/fb1-517x576.png 517w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/fb1-269x300.png 269w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/fb1-768x856.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/fb1.png 1182w" sizes="(max-width: 517px) 100vw, 517px" /></div>
Donohue did not respond to an inquiry from The Dally Wire asking how she got the Democrats’ endorsement if she did not seek it, and how her actions did not constitute a Hatch Act violation.
The Loudoun GOP said &#8220;Her acceptance of a political party’s endorsement, her campaign contributions to that same party, her frequent appearances with democrat officials at campaign events, and apparent use of Democrat Party support, has placed her campaign in blatant violation of the federal law&#8230; The serious nature of these allegations demands an investigation. The last person we need on our school board is someone who is willing to violate federal law to gain power over our children and subvert the rights of parents.&#8221;
The DOJ did not return a request for comment about why it had permitted Donohue to run for America’s most politicized school board, and why Americans should be confident that its top National Security Division officials are not partisan.
In October 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland — Donohue&#8217;s boss — <a href="https://www.justice.gov/ag/page/file/1438986/download" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mobilized</a> the department against parents at school board meetings, based upon a letter from the National School Boards Association referencing Loudoun County. Garland has refused to rescind the memo even after the school board association apologized and admitted the request was improper.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/virginia-school-board-rejects-biden-admins-bid-to-mediate-its-deliberations-on-trans-policy">Virginia School Board Rejects Biden Admin’s Bid To ‘Mediate’ Its Deliberations On Trans Policy</a>

Merrick Garland

DOJ Attorney Wants To Join Loudoun School Board, Running An Anti-Parent, Openly Partisan, And Possibly Illegal Campaign

Department of Justice

A Virginia school board member seeking a promotion to the state legislature may have used her position in an attempt to sabotage her election opponent — a teacher in the school district she presides over, records show.
Democrat Stella Pekarsky, who currently serves on the Fairfax County School Board, was personally involved in discussions over whether to punish Julie Perry, a history teacher who is running against her in this year’s District 36 Senate race, according to <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23986992-pekarsky-foia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">emails and calendar entries</a> obtained by The Daily Wire through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The records show a Pekarsky donor sent Centreville High School Principal Chad Lehman a complaint objecting to conservative social media posts the history teacher made as part of her campaign. Lehman forwarded the complaint to the school board&#8217;s Assistant Superintendent Penny Gros, who said she would seek guidance about what to do. That guidance appears to have come from none other than Pekarsky, and it was followed by a memo reprimanding Perry and threatening her job.
“Your behavior negatively impacts the goals of this department and others,” the reprimand said, citing the campaign posts. “Any action that brings the school system into disrepute may be just cause for dismissal.”
Experts said the conduct of Pekarsky and taxpayer-funded employees could constitute serious misconduct intended to impact the election, saying it is improper for individual board members to be involved in the discipline of specific teachers — much less their own campaign opponents.
The initial complaint came on May 7, not long after Perry announced that she was running for the same seat as Pekarsky, from Robert Rigby, a substitute teacher who is close with Pekarsky. Rigby wrote to Principal Lehman to say that he had filed a complaint with Child Protective Services (CPS) against Perry, citing a social media post she made regarding scientific research that found that autistic children are especially prone to transgenderism.
<div id="attachment_623493" style="width: 656px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-623493" class="wp-image-623493 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/09/rigby-pekarsky-fb-cropped.jpeg" alt="Stella Pekarsky with Robert Rigby / Facebook" width="646" height="418" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/09/rigby-pekarsky-fb-cropped.jpeg 646w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/09/rigby-pekarsky-fb-cropped-300x194.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 646px) 100vw, 646px" />Stella Pekarsky with Robert Rigby / Facebook</div>
Lehman forwarded the complaint to his supervisor, Gros, who said she would &#8220;follow up tomorrow after getting some guidance.&#8221;
The next day, CPS alerted the school that it had dismissed the complaint as unfounded. But soon after, a second complaint was made asking the school itself to take action.
That complaint came on May 11 at 3:15 p.m., when Vanessa Hall – a local Democrat activist who was <a href="https://www.fcps.edu/committee/family-life-education-curriculum-advisory-committee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appointed</a> to a sex-ed committee by the school board – emailed Lehman pointing to Perry&#8217;s &#8220;numerous social media posts that are homophobic, transphobic, and deeply hurtful to the entire community.&#8221; It said that the tweet — in which Perry said she had personally seen how trangender ideology affected an autistic student — showed that &#8220;she is using students for her political gain.&#8221;
Lehman again forwarded the email to Gros, and calendar entries obtained by The Daily Wire indicate that she within an hour was meeting with Pekarsky to discuss Perry. Gros’ calendar shows a “Phone Call: Stella (re: Julie Perry)” for 4:00 to 4:30 that day, according to emails and calendar entries. And at 4:29, Gros replied to Lehman that she was ready to discuss how to proceed, saying, “I am available if you are.”
A FOIA request for references to Perry in Gros&#8217; account showed no evidence that she consulted anyone else other than Pekarsky for &#8220;guidance&#8221; on the matter.
The next week, Lehman summoned Perry to a meeting in which Hall’s complaint and the fact that a CPS complaint was filed were used as evidence that she had brought the school system into “disrepute,” even though CPS dismissed the complaint, according to a summary memo that Lehman placed in Perry&#8217;s personnel file.
The reprimand ordered Perry to avoid any posts on social media that reference her teaching position.
“Moving forward, you must avoid social media posts that draw a connection to &#8230; your role as a teacher at Centreville High School,” it said. (Pekarsky’s own website <a href="https://stellapekarsky.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">says she is a teacher</a>, even though, according to public records, she does not have a <a href="https://vadoe.mylicense.com/verification/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">teaching license</a>.)
Pam Kirby, a former member of the Scottsdale, Arizona, school board who now leads the Arizona Coalition for School Board Members, said it would be abnormal for an individual school board member to be involved in the discipline case of a specific employee.
School board members have “no authority” as individuals, “they only have authority as a body” through votes, she told The Daily Wire. “It&#8217;s abusing your role as a school board member, whether there&#8217;s an election or not. That authority is given to the superintendent, and the board manages the superintendent,” she said.
The <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CV6K6B504D07/$file/Manual%20revisions%20approved%20-%207-13-23.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">governance manual</a> outlining the role of the Fairfax County School board members requires members to agree to &#8220;delegate authority for the administration of the schools to the Superintendent” and “refrain from using the board position for personal or partisan gain and avoid any conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety.”
“I will respect the confidentiality of privileged information and make no individual decisions or commitments that might compromise the board or administration,” it says.
<div id="attachment_623465" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-623465" class="size-large wp-image-623465" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/09/pekarsky-1024x555.png" alt="Virginia Senate candidate Stella Pekarsky. Source: Fairfax County Public Schools" width="1024" height="555" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/09/pekarsky-1024x555.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/09/pekarsky-300x163.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/09/pekarsky-768x416.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/09/pekarsky-1536x832.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/09/pekarsky-2048x1109.png 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Virginia Senate candidate Stella Pekarsky. Source: Fairfax County Public Schools</div>
The board’s <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CKEJJH4D68C5/$file/P1801.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Conflict of Interest Policy</a> further states that “a School Board member shall disqualify himself or herself from participating in any transaction on behalf of the school system if he or she has a personal interest,” noting that “violation of the State and Local Government Conflict of Interests Act, which is the basis of this policy, may result in enforcement action by the Commonwealth Attorney, including but not limited to criminal prosecution.”
Virginia <a href="https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodepopularnames/state-and-local-government-conflict-of-interests-act/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law</a> says a public official may not “use for his own economic benefit or that of another party confidential information that he has acquired by reason of his public position” or “use his public position to retaliate or threaten to retaliate against any person for expressing views on matters of public concern.”
In the Fairfax County Public Schools rulebook, it says that a dispute over how policy applies to an employee personnel matter would only reach the school board after <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/BY5HWF4A7833/$file/R4461.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">six layers of appeals</a>.
Violations of rules for board members can result in the “removal from any leadership or committee positions.”
Pekarsky, who is squaring off against Perry for the Senate seat representing western Fairfax County with early voting starting this week, acknowledged in a statement that the CPS call by her donor was a &#8220;misuse&#8221; of the CPS system, but claimed she did not know about it. &#8220;I have recused myself from anything to do with any internal school system process involving her,&#8221; she said.
A FOIA request of Pekarsky&#8217;s emails including Perry&#8217;s name showed no email saying she recused herself from anything
Pekarsky did not deny the &#8220;Phone Call: Stella (re: Julie Perry)&#8221; immediately following the CPS complaint, and did not explain the records or what would have been discussed if not the CPS complaint, instead suggesting that her opponent is a Nazi.
A spokesperson for FCPS defended the contact between the school and Pekarsky. “There is an expectation that all Fairfax County Public Schools regional area superintendents keep their magisterial school board members informed about matters that could be of community concern at any schools under that member’s purview,&#8221; the spokesperson said. &#8220;Such updates are informational.”
But Karen Hilz, a former school board member in Franklin County, Virginia, who has run trainings for school board members, said “The pecking order is assistant superintendent, superintendent, board. So why wasn’t it elevated to the superintendent to inform the board? … And did they reach out solely to [Pekarsky] or inform all board members? If it’s for information purposes you inform all school board members.”
She said the conduct by political activists, FCPS staff, and Pekarsky was “without a doubt election interference.”
“Obviously there’s a relationship there, is what it seems to me, and they were collaborating on what to do with an opponent, which is totally inappropriate,” she added.
Perry said a successful CPS complaint would mean “they would have fired me immediately, ripped my teachers license away from me, I would have never gotten another teaching job, and there’s a chance I would have gone to jail,” she said.
The school district initially attempted to conceal the identities of both Hall and Rigby under FOIA, before conceding that it had no justification for withholding Hall’s name. It continued to conceal Rigby’s name, saying CPS complaints are private under the law.
But Hayden Fisher, a lawyer who is running for another state Senate seat as a Republican, noted that <a href="https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title63.2/chapter15/section63.2-1514/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Virginia law</a> also says a complainant&#8217;s identity can be unmasked if the complaint was &#8220;in bad faith or with malicious intent.&#8221; Representing Perry, he made that argument in court.
On September 8, a Fairfax County judge <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23986994-pekarsky-court" target="_blank" rel="noopener">compelled CPS</a> to provide the name of the complainant for his review. The judge said he would investigate whether the person is tied to Pekarsky, and if he found connections, the complaint would likely be presumed to be malicious, Fisher said.
Perry deleted the tweet after only an hour, meaning it was seen by few people and the two complainants were likely working together, Fisher said.
Public records reviewed by The Daily Wire show that Hall, who emailed a complaint to the principal, is one of four officers of a Democrat activist group called <a href="https://cis.scc.virginia.gov/EntitySearch/BusinessInformation?businessId=11378816&amp;source=FromEntityResult&amp;isSeries%20=%20false" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4 Public Education</a>. Another officer of that group is Rigby, raising the possibility that Rigby filed the CPS complaint, with Hall following up with a school-specific complaint when the CPS complaint did not work.
Rigby last year served as an advisor to the Pride Liberation Project, which said it would <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-trans-group-behind-virginia-school-walkout-plans-to-rehome-gay-kids-who-hate-their-parents" target="_blank" rel="noopener">harbor minors</a> who wanted to run away from their parents, saying, &#8220;In the event of you needing to leave your home, we can provide you with emergency housing from a supportive, Queer friendly adult.&#8221;
Rigby acknowledged to The Daily Wire that he made the CPS complaint.
Rigby has donated more than <a href="https://www.vpap.org/donors/323895-robert-rigby/?start_year=2018&amp;end_year=2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$9,000</a> to Virginia Democrats since 2018, including more than $800 to Pekarsky. He donated to Pekarsky’s Senate campaign three days after Pekarsky spoke to the assistant superintendent, and one day before the principal summoned Perry to threaten her with discipline.
That means the judge may rule the complaint malicious. But that might not come until after the election, with voting beginning September 22 and ending November 7.
Perry said “there have to be consequences” that punish election interference.

Virginia Senate candidate Stella Pekarsky. Campaign website

Virginia Democrat Used Gov’t Position To Play Role In Reprimand Of Her Conservative Opponent, Records Reveal

A Conservative Teacher Is Running For State Senate. A Democrat Operative Complained To Her School District, Which Coordinated With Her Opponent Then Threatened To Fire Her

Election Fraud

Virginia Democrats and Loudoun County&#8217;s George Soros-backed prosecutor are lashing out at Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) over his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/glenn-youngkin-grants-absolute-pardon-to-loudoun-dad-arrested-at-school-board-meeting">Sunday pardon of Scott Smith</a>, whose daughter was raped in school and who the prosecutor, Buta Biberaj, personally sought to put in jail.
Biberaj said Youngkin&#8217;s pardon &#8220;is an unprecedented and inappropriate intervention into an active legal case,&#8221; and said he was taking action &#8220;not for justice but for political gain.&#8221; Scott Surovell, the vice chairman of the Democrat Senate Caucus, said Youngkin&#8217;s pardon was an abandonment of &#8220;law and order&#8221; intended to &#8220;help his failing presidential ambitions.&#8221;
Smith was set to face his second trial this month for the crime of cursing at a leftist activist who said she didn&#8217;t believe his daughter was raped. Smith was arrested after a police officer grabbed him from behind as he was exchanging words with activist Jackie Schworm, leading to a televised tussle with police. But the resisting arrest charge was thrown out, meaning Smith was being prosecuted solely for an angry exchange of words.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Gov. Youngkin is once again using Loudoun County for his political gain. My full statement below. <a href="https://t.co/fPYEksC93T">pic.twitter.com/fPYEksC93T</a>
&mdash; Buta Biberaj (@ButaBiberaj) <a href="https://twitter.com/ButaBiberaj/status/1700983375153205358?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Despite Smith having committed no apparent crime, police apprehended him from behind, saying his body language suggested that it might escalate. They bloodied him and kneeled on his chest as he shouted, &#8220;I can&#8217;t breathe.&#8221;
Youngkin&#8217;s pardon stated that his office determined Smith committed no crime, and called into question the &#8220;integrity of the prosecution.&#8221;
State Delegate Candi Mundon King, a black Democrat representing Stafford and Prince William Counties, said on X: &#8220;Didn&#8217;t law enforcement make these charges&#8230; Guess he doesn&#8217;t &#8216;Back the blue&#8217; as much as we thought.&#8221;
Biberaj ran on a platform lamenting &#8220;overincarceration&#8221; and has refused to prosecute many misdemeanors. Democrats, claiming to want to stop people from being arrested for minor crimes in schools, even passed a <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+sum+HB257=">law</a> that &#8220;Eliminates the requirement that school principals report to law enforcement certain enumerated acts that may constitute a misdemeanor offense.&#8221;
When it came to a parent whose lived experience posed a threat to Democrats&#8217; effort to pass a transgender bathroom policy, however, Biberaj personally took Smith&#8217;s case and sought jail time. He was denied a jury because it was a misdemeanor, and he was convicted. A judge threw out the resisting arrest charge after Smith appealed, and threw Biberaj off the case for apparent conflict of interest.
But the government kept fighting Smith, forcing him to head towards a second trial for disorderly conduct. A judge was brought out of retirement from neighboring, deep-blue Fairfax County who ruled that under the “peculiar” language of Virginia’s disorderly conduct statute, Smith arguably committed disorderly conduct by cursing at Schworm because it could “incite” her to violence—even though that interpretation would seemingly mean the leftist activist was guilty of the same crime.
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What kind of sick freak objects to pardoning a dad being charged for confronting the school board that covered up the anal rape of his daughter??? <a href="https://t.co/IRy5SYiz9r">https://t.co/IRy5SYiz9r</a>
&mdash; Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) <a href="https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1701230931921576175?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Judge Howe Brown, who was brought out of retirement from deep-blue Fairfax County to hear the case, suggested Smith might have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/father-of-loudoun-rape-victim-dealt-another-blow-in-court-when-will-the-healing-begin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">deserved to be assaulted</a> for calling the activist Schworm a &#8220;b&#8212;,&#8221; saying, “I think it incites her to violence. I think he was lucky he didn’t get slapped.&#8221;
Smith told The Daily Wire this week that Schworm had just spoken with his daughter, who was in line to speak into a megaphone, before making a beeline over to him to say she didn&#8217;t believe her story and that she would destroy his plumbing business by attacking it on social media.
&#8220;It&#8217;s obvious&#8221; that Schworm — a member of a Facebook group called <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/loudoun-teachers-target-parents-critical-race-theory-hacking" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun&#8221;</a> alongside Biberaj, and whose members plotted to destroy anyone who posed an obstacle to the transgender agenda in schools — intended to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/glenn-youngkin-grants-absolute-pardon-to-loudoun-dad-arrested-at-school-board-meeting" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prevent the daughter from telling her story</a> to the world, Smith said.
Her efforts were initially successful, with Smith&#8217;s arrest being used by the Department of Justice and media organizations to paint conservatives as a threat to school boards. The reason for his anger at the school board was unknown until The Daily Wire revealed it five months later, after the rapist attacked a second girl. The rapist was later convicted, but was not placed on the registered sex offender list because of an error by Biberaj.
Smith told The Daily Wire the pardon was necessary because there was no assurance of justice &#8220;anywhere in counties that are run by radical prosecutors.&#8221;

Scott Smith at the Loudoun County Courthouse / The Daily Wire

Democrats Lash Out At Youngkin For Pardoning Father Of Loudoun Rape Victim

George Soros