Jacksonville residents are beginning to push back against a public school system they see as moving further left every day.
Once aroused they act — quickly, too.
Local activist Esther Lyle Byrd posted this comment on Facebook:
“Does anyone know of a local or Florida FB group where conservative parents of public school children can share examples of indoctrination in our schools? I’m tired of hearing that there’s nothing parents can do! There has to be a way to support and empower parents. Our complaints will probably fall on deaf ears until we can take our school boards back from the radicals, but dang it, we can still make noise and let other parents know they aren’t alone!
“If nothing already exists, then we will create it – but if it does exist, I WANT IN!!”
Byrd said the current liberal fad called “critical race theory” may have been the final straw for her, provoking the post.
“At some point we have to go from caring to doing something,” she told Eye on Jacksonville.
Doing something is where Byrd, a former Marine, excels.
Within minutes she had dozens of responses from people who agreed with her.
One chimed in: “People have to run for school board, and we’ve got to take back our schools. Or the next batch of kids will be more confused and indoctrinated than the last bunch who elected our current president and caused Duval County to vote blue in 2020.”
Soon afterward, Emily Nunez announced that she had created a Facebook group called “Save Our Schools – Florida.” It quickly reached 100 members.
Why the furor?
The current Duval County School Board is dominated by liberals. The liberal school superintendent recently caved in to protesting students and apologized to them for something she did that was perfectly reasonable and sensible.
In Duval schools, a boy can use the girls’ restrooms. They defend this policy by saying that if a girl complains they will investigate.
But people who live in the real world know that in today’s bizarre “woke” culture, no schoolgirl is going to complain, knowing that she will be condemned, criticized and ostracized by her already-indoctrinated schoolmates.
Eye on Jacksonville has documented one case where a radical professor was openly indoctrinating students. There have been others.
In addition, the constant revising of history, such as the renaming of schools, has caused parents and others to take notice and, finally, take action.
The new group may pattern itself after a group in Broward County – a liberal stronghold – that was formed to combat the left’s hold on public education, via teacher unions and left-wing politicians sitting on school boards. Nunez say they will contact that group.
Nunez was critical of the efforts to focus on race in places like Chicago, which she said has a 37 percent literacy rate.
“It is supposed to be about teaching math, reading, those sort of things, not making kids feel guilty about their skin color,” she said.
“It’s making its way to Jacksonville.”
It is likely that the aroused parents, voters and taxpayers in Jacksonville will examine the textbooks being used in the schools, and the curriculum, and attend School Board meetings, asking questions and demanding answers.
Previously, all the demands have been from the left.
Once a backlash starts, it tends to gain momentum.
Eye will report findings, complaints and suggestions for improvement that might come from these new groups.
