PETITION: Texas Parents and Educators Demand a Social Studies TEKS First Reading by the SBOE [YouTube Video]

Friends:

Please view this video and consider signing the following petition:Texas Parents and Educators Demand a Social Studies TEKS First Reading by the SBOE

Trinidad Gonzales started this petition

The State Board of Education on August 30, 2022, under pressure from extremists conservative organizations such as Patriot Mobile and the Texas House of Representatives Freedom Caucus and their supporters delayed voting to have a first reading of SB3 aligned Social Studies TEKS. These organizations and supporters represent a fringe group that is out of step with the rest of Texas educators and parents.

We the undersigned demand the SBOE reverse itself and vote to have a first reading of the proposed TEKS that follows the legal requirements of SB3 and is inclusive of all Texans. After a first reading various stakeholders can then propose changes to specific standards in a civil democratic manner. The delay of the first reading is an act of censorship.

For further information concerning the SBOE delay see this article: 

Pete Arredondo fired as Uvalde Consolidated ISD police chief: Consider Signing Petition

True. While Arredondo is the first officer to ever get dismissed for a school shooting—a curious fact unto itself—what sticks out for me in this piece is a "Change.org petition calling on authorities to fire every officer who stood in the hallway [on] May 24th." It has received more than 89,000 signatures, my own included.

Hope to see folks at the March For Our Lives rally tomorrow at 11AM.

We need to urge the Texas State Legislature to pursue commonsense, gun and school safety legislation.

-Angela Valenzuela

Pete Arredondo fired as Uvalde Consolidated ISD police chief

Arredondo is the first officer dismissed over law enforcement response to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.

Uvalde schools police Chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo speaks during a press conference at Uvalde County Fairplex after nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, TX. (Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer)

By Jamie Landers and The Associated Press

7:27 PM on Aug 24, 2022

More than two months after being placed on administrative leave, an embattled Pete Arredondo was fired from his position as Uvalde Consolidated ISD police chief Wednesday.

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s board of trustees said it voted unanimously to dismiss Arredondo.

Arredondo was not in attendance but through his attorney released a blistering and defiant 17-page letter that lashed out at state officials, defended the police response to the May 24 massacre and accused the school board of putting his safety at risk.

As the board convened into a closed session, some in the auditorium yelled “Coward!” and “What about our children?”

Arredondo is the first officer dismissed over the hesitant and fumbling law enforcement response to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. Only one other officer — Uvalde Police Department Lt. Mariano Pargas, who was the city’s acting police chief on the day of massacre — is known to have been placed on leave for his actions during the shooting.

Superintendent Hal Harrell had first moved to fire Arredondo in July but postponed the decision at the request of the police chief’s attorney.

Arredondo was placed on administrative leave June 22 after weeks of rising criticism surrounding the law-enforcement response at Robb Elementary School, when 19 children and two teachers were killed in Texas’ deadliest school shooting.

Eighty minutes elapsed between the first call to 911 and police confronting the shooter, who fired at least 142 rounds, according to a timeline from Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw.

Arredondo said afterward he didn’t believe he was in charge of the response. Yet in the district’s written active-shooter plan, Arredondo assigned himself incident commander, according to a report examining the response released by a Texas House committee. In interviews conducted or obtained by the committee, police officers said they either assumed Arredondo was in command, or did not know who was in charge, with some describing the scene as “chaos.”

Minutes before Wednesday’s meeting of the Uvalde school board got underway, Arredondo’s attorney released a scathing 4,500-word letter that amounted to the police chief’s fullest defense to date of his actions. Over 17 defiant pages, Arredondo is not the fumbling school police chief who a damning state investigation blamed for not taking command and wasted time by looking for keys to a likely unlocked door, but a brave officer whose level-headed decisions saved the lives of other students.

The letter also accused Uvalde school officials of putting his life at risk by not letting him carry a weapon to the school board meeting.

“Chief Arredondo is a leader and a courageous officer who with all of the other law enforcement officers who responded to the scene, should be celebrated for the lives saved, instead of vilified for those they couldn’t reach in time,” Hyde wrote.

McCraw testified before the state Senate that Arredondo’s decisions cost lives.

“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from [entering rooms] 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” he said.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, which had more than 90 state troopers at the scene, has also launched an internal investigation into the response by state police.

Arredondo resigned from his seat on the Uvalde City Council on July 2. He was elected to the council May 7 and was sworn into the role May 31, behind closed doors.

“After much consideration, I regret to inform those who voted for me that I have decided to step down as a member of the City Council for District 3,” Arredondo told the Uvalde Leader-News then. “The mayor, the city council and the city staff must continue to move forward without distractions. I feel this is the best decision for Uvalde.”

A Change.org petition calling on authorities to fire every officer who stood in the hallway May 24 has garnered over 89,000 signatures.

“Their failure to not only stop the shooter from entering Robb Elementary School, but refusal to enter the building to engage the shooter cost the lives of 19 children and 2 adults,” the petition says. “These officers should be held accountable for their ineptitude and released from their positions, as they have no intentions on serving and protecting the children of Uvalde.”

New security measures

School officials have said the campus at Robb Elementary will no longer be used. Instead, campuses elsewhere in Uvalde will serve as temporary classrooms for elementary school students, not all of whom are willing to return to school in-person following the shooting.

School officials say a virtual academy will be offered for students. The district has not said how many students will attend virtually, but a new state law passed last year in Texas following the pandemic limits the number of eligible students receiving remote instruction to “10% of all enrolled students within a given school system.”

Schools can seek a waiver to exceed the limit but Uvalde has not done so, according to Melissa Holmes, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency.

New measures to improve school safety in Uvalde include “8-foot, non-scalable perimeter fencing” at elementary, middle and high school campuses, according to the school district. Officials say they have also installed additional security cameras, upgraded locks, enhanced training for district staff and improving communication.

However, according to the district’s own progress reports, as of Tuesday no fencing had been erected at six of the eight campuses where it was planned, and cameras had been installed only at the high school. Some progress had been made on locks at three of eight campuses, and communication improvement was marked as half complete for each campus.

Uvalde CISD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Staff writer Catherine Marfin contributed to this report.

Jamie Landers, Breaking News Reporter. Jamie Landers is a breaking news reporter at The Dallas Morning News. She is a graduate of The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix, where she studied journalism and political science. Jamie previously reported for The Arizona Republic and Arizona PBS.

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PETITION TO THE TEXAS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION In Favor of Necessary Truth and Against the Nonsense of Censorship

Friends:

Next Wednesday, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) is hearing testimony on Social Studies TEKS standards (Item 10), the very ones that attach to the extremist move against the 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory (CRT) which we know is not actually taught in K-12 schools. Regardless, this law that the SBOE now has to interpret and implement—risks creating a chilling effect for K-12 teachers on the teaching of race in the schools.

Please read this change.org petition below and consider signing it as a statement against censorship that Senate Bill 3—Texas' anti-CRT bill—represents. We support instead teaching that is honest, hopeful, and healing: https://www.change.org/p/in-favor-of-necessary-truth-and-against-the-nonsense-of-censorship?signed=true (Note: copy and paste link in your browser if this link doesn't work.)

Also, if you're in the Austin area next Wednesday when the item will get heard, consider the following additional possible actions

1. Attend our press conference against censorship at 10:30AM next Wednesday in the inside foyer of the William B. Travis State Office Building—home to the Texas Education Agency—at 1701 North Congress Ave., Austin, Texas, located across the street from the Bullock History Museum Building.
2. Sign up TODAY to testify on Item 10 of the TSBOE that focuses on the social studies TEKS. Agenda: https://tea.texas.gov/node/358496 
3. 
    (Links to an external site.)Sign up here TODAY to testify: https://tea.texas.gov/about-tea/leadership/state-board-of-education/sboe-meetings/public-testimony-registration 

Remember that your testimony needs to be focused on the actual item—in this case, Item 10 on which you intend to testify; also when you testify, you only get two minutes to speak. However, the board may ask you questions, extending your time, and you can also always submit written testimony.

The Texas SBOE is a 15-member board and you can locate your SBOE member here. While we keep pushing for Ethnic Studies in the legislature and at the Texas SBOE, regardless of SB3, we desperately need to continue advocating for more diverse representation in our state's K-12 content social studies standards as well as throughout the entire curriculum. Many organizations and coalition members are expected to be in attendance.

See y'all on Wednesday!

-Angela Valenzuela

#PutinizationOfPublicEducation

#SayNoToFascism #Fascism

In Favor of Necessary Truth and Against the Nonsense of Censorship

National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Texas Chapter

“Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.” — Benjamin Franklin

“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us." — Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

A very old enemy—CENSORSHIP—raises its ugly head as educators across the country have been advocating for an expanded public school curriculum that includes under-represented groups like Mexican Americans, African Americans, Indigenous communities, Asian and Pacific Islanders, and women. The Texas Legislature’s House Bill 3979 and Senate Bill 3—the latter signed by the governor—have given new life to CENSORSHIP by questioning the teaching of race in our schools and outlawing the 1619 Project, a reasonable proposal to incorporate a broader understanding of African American history into U.S. history. The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) will now consider implementing the misdirected will of the Texas Legislature and giving new life to CENSORSHIP.

The problem is that the bills—and now the law—call for CENSORSHIP with the baseless argument of reverse discrimination that accuses our schools of knowingly and purposefully making White youth feel responsible for the racial “sins of their fathers.” The SBOE is now being called to embrace hateful CENSORSHIP and, in the process, discard two of its bedrock principles, that verifiable and trustworthy history serves as the foundation for our state’s standard curriculum; and that teacher training and certification programs as well as tested ethical principles in the profession and the ongoing oversight work of the SBOE assure the proper social-emotional development of all youth. The directive from the Legislature and the Governor’s office, in other words, not only proposes to CENSOR the teaching of subjects related to race; it also questions the integrity of public servants in the SBOE and the good judgment of well over 300,000 professional teachers in Texas.

The members of the SBOE and the general public should consider the legislative intent endorsed by the bills and the governor who signed SB3. According to State Representative Steve Toth, the author of the initial bill, the teaching of race and the 1619 Project cause “hateful classroom activities and a racially discriminatory curriculum” (Toth: Letter to members of the Texas House of Representatives, May 7, 2021). In his letter to fellow legislators, Toth offered as evidence one single children’s book that teachers from the Dallas Highland Park School District supposedly recommended to some of their students. Never mind that the book, Not My Idea; A Book about Whiteness (by Anastasia Higginbotham) represents a single reading recommendation, that an undetermined number—possibly one or a few—made. Whoever these teachers in question are, their recommendation arguably carries more weight than Mr. Toth who found its contents inappropriate for use in Texas classrooms (Consult the following site for a different view of the book, https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=not+my+idea+video).

Mr. Toth adds insult to injury when he makes the unfounded and specious association of a growing rate of suicide among White youth with the teaching of race. He warns that suicide among children between the ages of 10 and 14 has “exploded” from .9 to 2 per hundred thousand between 2010 and 2021. Aside from failing to demonstrate the association of suicides with the teaching of race, Mr. Toth’s strained logic offers no substantiation for his observation, while also callously exploiting a mental health issue for political gain and, no doubt, injuring the sensibilities of Texas families who are indeed suffering such losses.

Although CENSORSHIP is being sold as an act of caring for White youth, it is having the opposite effect. According to the American Medical Association’s Everyday Health,

While parents may be tempted to shelter their children from issues that they find unfavorable or offensive, they may be restricting their child’s ability to grow and learn at the same time. These restrictive world views are the seeds of bigotry, with the implication being that anyone who believes differently from you must be foolish or misinformed. https://www.everydayhealth.com/kids-health/censorship-schools-effects-on-our-children/

Our goal as educators and parents is not to create obstacles to a healthy understanding of the world so that our children can be productive members of society. This is not a partisan issue. According to a CBS News poll, 80% of Americans favor the teaching issues related to race and the country's history of racism. The authors of the subsequent report conclude that “The idea that teaching about race makes students feel guilty about past generations or makes them less racially tolerant today gets little traction with most Americans.”

We are facing a massive shortage of teachers in the classroom, and the specter of censorship and book banning only serves to add undue stress on an already overburdened profession. Moreover, CENSORSHIP spreads fear of others and the banning of books does nothing more than foster anxiety and dread when learning should be purposeful and enjoyable. It is this fear that led the framers of the Constitution to ensure our freedom of speech as a core feature of democratic life.

Since the inception of this country, our very first act was to establish the freedom of speech. The very first Amendment to our Constitution states that,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/

This cherished core value has been under attack during the past hundred years, but especially in recent times. The recent official view of the AFL-CIO underscores this fact:

The guarantee of access to a free and quality public education should be a right accorded to every child in this country. Securing that guarantee should be a goal and a value that unites all Americans and is supported by our public policies and policymakers at every level. [https://aflcio.org/about/leadership/statements/fighting-importance-public-education-our-children-our-economy-our.]

Clearly, our lawmakers seek to curtail an honest and diverse teaching of history and contemporary society and, in the process, hinder our children’s ability to fully understand and appreciate the complexity of our current world.

In response to the CENSORS, we say, EXPAND KNOWLEDGE, SUPPORT OUR TEACHERS, ENCOURAGE TRUTH-TELLING AND BUILD A BETTER WORLD OF UNDERSTANDING AND AUTHENTIC CARING.

Christopher Carmona, Ph.D.

Emilio Zamora, Ph.D.