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Earlier this month, our news outlet published a guest column from a South Carolina school board leader addressing the increasingly “woke” machinations of the S.C. Association of School Librarians (SCASL).
This left-of-center group – which wields significant influence over the materials Palmetto State school children are exposed to at their schools – recently declared a “war against parents,” this local school board leader alleged.
What did they do? Basically, the SCASL has determined that any attempt to remove wildly inappropriate/ hyper-sexual/ gender confusing materials from school libraries represents some sort of discriminatory book-banning campaign.
Does it? Absolutely not.
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“This isn’t an attack on a certain class of individuals or students,” Midlands, South Carolina school board chairwoman Rebecca Blackburn Hines wrote on our site. “It isn’t an issue about sexual preferences, identity, race, religion, etc. The issue is about state standards, curriculum, and exposing minors to materials containing obscenity and extreme sexually explicit depictions.”
To read Hines’ column in its entirety, click here.
This week, Hines got some backing from the state’s superintendent of education – first-term Republican Ellen Weaver. In a letter to SCASL leader Michelle Spires, Weaver put the liberal advocacy group in its place regarding its recent broadside against parents.
“Parents are entirely justified in seeking to ensure educational materials presented to their children are age-appropriate and aligned with the overall purpose of South Carolina’s instructional program and standards,” Weaver wrote. “When SCASL labels those efforts as bans, censorship, or a violation of educators’ intellectual freedom, the result is a more hostile environment which does not serve the needs of students.”
(Click to View)
Weaver went on to say SCASL’s attack on parents “actively erodes the trust and partnership we must build between parents and educators.”
“In South Carolina, student well-being and parental satisfaction are not opposing interests,” she wrote.
Weaver’s letter wasn’t just a verbal reprimand of this group and its “hyperbolic rhetoric.” It noted an official shift in policy from the S.C. Department of Education (SCDE).
“As a result of SCASL’s continued lack of discernment on this foundational issue, (SCDE) will formally discontinue any partnerships with SCASL as an organization, effective immediately,” she wrote.
Instead, SCDE will now “communicate with (school librarians) directly, as we seek to provide ongoing professional development and support to foster an atmosphere of cooperation between our schools, parents, and the broader community.”
Kudos to Weaver and Hines. Parents seeking to protect their children from leftist grooming and gender-erasing indoctrination are not goose-stepping, book-burning monsters. They are responsible parents, and they should be congratulated – not demonized – for standing up for their children.
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THE LETTER …
(Via: SCDE)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.
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20 comments
SC is dead set on being the least educated, lowest paying, unhealthiest State in the Country.
Oh yeah, they have already been there for decades.
Fargo (ND) Public Schools is vying among many for that most coveted position of “Most Woke Public School System” award, even OPENLY DEFYING STATE LAW to do so, thanks to Dr. Rupak Gandhi, Superintendent of FPS.
Why do you libs insist on showing kids pornography?
Why do you Nazis insist on telling everyone what they can and can’t read?
I don’t let my kids read the bible or listen to your leader who loves to “grab them by the pussy” and rape women.
What does Weaver know about education anyway, with her quickie BJU degree?
Book burner
To someone who went to Bob Jones University, anything that was written after the Dark Ages is considered “woke.”
Around 2019-2020, GLSEN Rainbow Library sent sets of books directly to SC school libraries with titles for LGTBQ youth. SCASL encouraged librarians to make them available, so many did – without vetting them professionally. Because of its graphic depiction of sex acts, Gender Queer generated closer public examination of what was on school library shelves. A review of GQ in School Library Journal mentions sex toys, which should have been enough to prevent it from being placed on the shelves. Yet, suggesting that GQ does not belong in schools labels you as a bigoted Nazi. I hope Weaver can now lead schools back to concentrating on basic literacy.
After reading that, I’m assuming “basic literacy” wasn’t taught to you either?
Didn’t happen. Grifters going to grift
I wonder what it is like for the modern republicans that survive on nothing more than a diet of equal parts hate and fear?
The issue is a moral one which radical libs have morphed into a political one. Parents who oppose having pornographic books in schools are saying no to an attempt to normalize this, and they are justified.
The Communist agenda has taken over our school system and it must be stopped without apology. Saul Alinski, Rule 8: “ ‘Keep the pressure on. Never let up.’ Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance.” Exactly that, from sex ed in schools, then the gay agenda, then pornography in schools and now drag and gender ID, promoted by the SCASL.
Gotta’ end it. Thanks to Ellen Weaver for taking this stand.
you parent your kid, and other parents will parent there kids.
I have zero interest in your morals.
“their”
typing too fast
The Nazi Agenda, hate Jews, hate minorities, blame poor people, blame liberals, blame the press, label everyone you disagree with a communist, ban books that don’t say what you want, follow a cult leader, and believe him no matter what the facts show. Yep sounds like MAGA to me.
You have no right to tell other children what they can and can’t read. This would be true even if you weren’t so obviously stupid.
Radical libs. woke woke .. bla bla bla.
Since some of you never earned your GED after dropping out of school in elementary school, let me give you a quick primer on history. The side that wants to ban books are never, ever the “good” guys. Most of the claims made about the titles that the “Moms for Liberty” and their astro-turfed political sibling groups are dubious at best. It is clear that they’ve never actually read the books they want to ban, given their description of them. Or read, in general, but I’ll leave that tirade for another day. The GOP indoctrinates its followers by fear and anger. Outrage and limited info is used to keep the faithful in line because you’re basically in a freaking cult.
LOL
Boomer parents and older generations are convinced school libraries are indoctrinating students and turning them gay. That scares them to death.. What a bunch of clown buffoons.
These are the same people whose parents and grandparents were scared to death of the swiveling hips of Elvis and long hair of The Beatles.
News flash: more and more people are going to be gay, trans, etc including young people and nothing you do is going to stop it. In fact, your actions are making sure more and more are going to come out and stand up for themselves.