Parents and Students Confront Edina School Board on Political Indoctrination
A standing room only crowd showed up for the latest Edina School Board meeting in a show of force by parents upset over political indoctrination in their kids’ classrooms first revealed last fall by American Experiment. But a technical glitch in the school district’s video means those who were not there in person will never see–or at least hear–what attendees call an emotional event that captured the essence of the controversy that’s attracted national attention.
Nine parents and two students stood up to address the board, taking advantage of a public forum instituted following the contentious 2017 school district election. Here’s what happened, according to one Edina parent in the room.
“Our unified concern was the Pre-AP English 10 class offered at Edina High School and in the presentations we exposed what the truth of that class is. They gave one message to parents about what this class is and then our kids for years have been coming home and telling us all kinds of crazy stories.”
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Several school board members appeared to be moved by the personal stories of the impact of the ideological bullying of students who questioned the white privilege race theory and leftist activism imposed on them in class.
“It felt electric, that was the atmosphere in the room,” the parent said. “Those speeches were not given in anger. They were read, they were well-prepared, they were truthful, they were testimony and there was power in that.”
Yet throughout the presentation, Edina Public Schools Superintendent John Schultz appeared less than attentive. The district’s top administrative role model couldn’t be troubled to act the way he expects students to behave every day in class. Namely, to put down his papers, show respect and look at who’s talking to him. Schultz can be seen in these photos paying more attention to his paperwork than the two students a few feet away from him as they shared their daunting experiences in his classrooms.
American Experiment had planned to share the school board video on Facebook, once the district posted it online along with previously archived meetings. But in a twist bound to raise suspicions among some, Edina Schools now says a technical glitch in the audio feed makes the video essentially unusable.
The last impassioned parent to speak received a standing ovation from the audience. Ultimately, the school board came down on the parents’ side, at least for now, by voting 6 to 1 to reject an alternative class the parents viewed as a way to avoid restructuring the controversial Pre-AP English 10 course. Yet the outcome of a review of the English 10 course currently underway remains up in the air.
Edina Schools vows the technical problem will not be repeated. Now if administrators would only vow that the district’s leftist ideological and bullying problem will not be repeated on future generations of Edina students.