How Parents Took Back Control of Education—and Why the Tide Is Turning

Now, as a former school board member, and you've seen some of these school boards really go radical, like indoctrination, they shut the parents down. I live in an area in Virginia called Loudon County, which was ground zero when it came to allowing biological males into girls' bathrooms, this being a big issue that impacted the election because the American people said, we don't want this indoctrination. We don't want boys in girls' locker rooms. And this fight has really, I think for so many parents who never got involved politically, Erica, they jumped into the political fight because they're like, no, no, no. We don't want the boys competing in the girls' sports. We don't need Jimmy competing against Sally for a scholarship. How did it get so out of control? Do you think we're turning the tide here? Well, I think people need to understand that it has been out of control quietly behind the scenes for a very long time. See, I was on the school board in 2014, and these things were happening then, the indoctrination was happening then. The Obama administration had put out a dear colleague letter saying that we had to allow students to use the bathrooms that were their gender identity. And school districts just adopted those policies very quietly when no one was paying attention. I was in the minority on our school board. We tried to say no, and they overrode the two votes that we had. So it's not a new phenomenon what is happening. What's new is that the silver lining of COVID, that the curtain was pulled back and parents got to see exactly what was going on, what their children were being taught or not being taught. Parents were very disappointed with the lack of rigor that they were seeing during COVID. But the indoctrination that was happening, whether it's LGBTQ or CRT, those types of things were exposed. That's when you saw the groups like Moms for Liberty come out. You saw Governor DeSantis leading the charge against these things from a legislative perspective. And now it's exposed how out of control it is even more because of how much they're fighting to keep those things in the schools. But thank God for the parents and the PIMP community members that are running for school board, that are going to school board meetings, that are holding these people accountable because it's working. And for Donald Trump as well, and the executive orders that he has put forth, in addition to what DeSantis has done here in Florida, although they continue to hold on to that, we're winning the battle, not just from a legislative perspective, from a legal perspective, but the country at writ large, you have 89% of Americans, not Republicans, not conservatives, but Americans that say that boys do not belong in women's sports. So we're winning the population and the opinions of our fellow Americans. Also we're winning thanks to Governor DeSantis and President Trump's leadership. I have to ask you about this recent, actually just yesterday, the Supreme Court ruling in favor of parents. Walk us through why that decision is so important in this fight for parental rights. Because that decision and the executive orders that President Trump has recently issued are taking the Florida model to the nation. What they decided yesterday was a bill that was passed back three years ago, House Bill 1467, that in Florida, thanks to Governor DeSantis, he signed a legislation that allowed parents to object to books that are inappropriate. Well that was- Explain the books. Like this is what, you go crazy. You're going, how is this possible happening in the schools? These books are so inappropriate that just a month ago, we had the superintendent of the Hillsborough County Public Schools come to a state board of education meeting and explain these materials and how they ended up in his classroom. At that meeting, if you go to Florida's Voice, you'll see Ryan Petty, the school board member, asked that superintendent, can you read these excerpts from the book? And he said, I'm not going to do that. I don't feel comfortable doing that. Well, if you don't feel comfortable reading those books in a public setting, like a school board meeting or a state board of education meeting, how could you think that those books are appropriate for our minors? Governor DeSantis has led the charge and it is absolutely biblically driven. We have to protect the innocence of our children. And this is something that we are fighting on the front lines. It started with COVID as our big education fight, but we've seen it. We are fighting a battle of good versus evil. We are fighting for truth. The fact that people who are Supreme Court justices cannot tell you what a woman is, is absurd. So what we are fighting for in the schools is not to push an ideology into those schools, but as you identified, Erica, it's to remove an ideology that has existed in education and has been completely hijacked by the left. So it's been an honor to be in this fight along with so many of you who are in this room. I saw Yvette Benaroche, who was here earlier. I know she was one of those moms that you described who would come to our state board of education meetings and would testify about some of the crazy things that she would identify in the school. So yesterday's Supreme Court decision, sorry, getting back on topic, was about a district where that was not the case. As a result, parents, teachers, students were forced to learn about sexual orientation and gender identity. So the Supreme Court, with justices appointed by President Trump, held the line and said, that's inappropriate. You cannot force parents, students, and teachers to that indoctrination. And in Florida, we've been doing that for about three years now, but it was good to see that the Supreme Court has now paved the way for the nation's parents to have similar protections.