Book objections continue in Wake schools
Parents have continued to bring obscene book objections to the school board despite the board's proposed policy to shut them down
More obscene and pornographic book objections flooded the June 20 meeting of the Democratically-controlled Board of Education for Wake County Public Schools (WCPSS).
The objections continued despite the board proposing a policy that would silence parents by imposing a 2-year moratorium on any book being challenged.
At the previous June 6 meeting of the school board, members Lynn Edmonds and Tyler Swanson accused speakers of making "anti-LGBTQ comments,” yet Chair Lindsay Mahaffey instructed the June 20 attendees prior to the second half of public comments that speakers should “respect the time of others not make disparaging remarks.”
Mahaffey told those in attendance "This is not her middle school classroom," and to be respectful of other speakers even if you don't agree with them.
Most of the June 20 speakers spoke about obscene and pornographic books that continue to exist in the district's libraries, with a number of the speakers chiding the board for continuing to ignore the issue.
A couple of parents of LGBTQIA+ students spoke as well, including Kaitlin Daly who said she came to talk after seeing "attacks on the LGBTQIA community" which she called "her community." She essentially thanked the board for ignoring the "culture wars" and for "not focusing on illustrations any teenager with a computer can find much worse on Google for free."
Save Our Schools’ Susan Book also showed up again and called the board a "shining star for Wake County."
Janet Peterson of the Pavement Education Project (PEP) held up a poster board that included a count of obscenities in the book "Red, White, and Royal Blue" by Casey McQuiston.
Peterson urged the board to come up with a policy that addresses and defines "pervasive vulgarity in books." She said she had brought word count signs to past meetings but "still we get silence from you."
Public commenter Jennifer Weiss told the board that books shouldn't be removed because a “vocal minority read out-of-context excerpts” of books.
"I am also here to speak out against efforts to ban books in our schools,” Weiss also said. "The fact is that many of the books that are being objected to are written by people of color or depict people of color or LGBTQIA+ characters."
Weiss asserted that if parents don't want their kids to read certain books, "that is a matter that can be handled between the family and the school but they should have no right to prevent other members of our community from having access" to those books.
Colleen Miller of PEP gave the board a list of 85 titles available in the district's schools that violate state obscenity laws. She also said she read 40 obscene books found in Wake County schools "cover to cover" and said, "They made me sick to my stomach," and she wished she could undo the images in her head after reading them. She was disturbed these books were readily available in the district for minor children.
"How dare you allow that?" Miller asked the board.
Nancy Haywood, wearing a "Pride of Cary" t-shirt, started out by praising Moore and saying she leaves a "high standard to live up to."
She then went on to refer to Moms for Liberty as a "hate" and "extremist anti-government group."
Without mentioning the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center as the source, Haywood said Moms for Liberty has been "recognized as a hate group" and asked the board to violate the First Amendment rights of that group by making "a policy to exclude them from being able to speak at future board meetings."
She rationalized that request by falsely accusing Moms for Liberty members of not having kids in the district. Haywood then asked board members who were backed by Moms for Liberty during their campaigns to drop that support "publicly."
Julie Page, the president of Moms for Liberty of Wake County, hit back in her remarks by reminding the board "I am not a domestic terrorist nor do I hate anyone in this building or the school system. I am just a mom that does actually care about public schools."
She discussed the 189 book challenges she submitted at the end of May and said she was "gaslit," "pushed back on," and condescended to by the board for the last 18 months. She said she's received nothing but excuses on why the challenges were dismissed.
Page cited an email from Allison Reed full of "gaslighting" and that she would be responding and copying all of the board members so that they could see that Policy 3210 was "clearly being violated by your own staff."
"Interpretations and feelings are not policy," Page said. "Now you are trying to change these policies due to the issues and red flags that I have raised."
Page also thanked board members Caulfield and Ng for their "common sense" while singling out all of the other board members saying, "We see you" and that "you should be ashamed of these underhanded, deceitful and dirty tactics." She added this is not the way to regain trust with parents.
Instead of reading passages from books, Page held up images from a book called "Sex Plus" which describes "how to find your G-Spot and how to get it off," as well as "how to stimulate the clitoris" and "massage the prostate."
Page called the board hypocritical for its DEI activities yet allows "erotica on the shelves for any child to see," She asked the board how they planned to protect kids from these materials.
"Supposedly schools are safe spaces for all, I contend that they are not. Revise, redact, restrict or remove," Page said before going on to address Superintendent Catty Moore’s retirement.
"Ya'll sit here and praise her like she's the best thing to ever happen to Wake County Schools," said Page, adding that Moore's failures have been blamed on the pandemic, yet Moore "advocated to keep schools closed and kids masked for as long as possible."
"She has fostered an anti-teacher and anti-parent culture," Page said or Moore. "She chooses to focus on social justice and equity."
Later on in the meeting, Wake North Carolina Association of Educators President Christina Spears gave some remarks that opened with "Happy Pride Month."
Spears thanked the board for their hard work and for their budget.
I trust the professional workers in our schools
She gave flowers to Moore and thanked her for sharing her story "of coming to this country with her family" and "learning in our public schools."
"I give you flowers for leading us as an educator and a practitioner" as well as for "keeping us as safe as possible during a global pandemic,” Spears said while praising Moore for "codifying an equity policy" and "supporting my team in the Office of Equity Affairs."
Spears was a Wake County employee in the Office of Equity Affairs (OEA) prior to becoming president of the Wake NCAE. In her role at the OEA, Spears was behind events like "Edcamp Equity" which my reporting on made national headlines in the launching of Christopher Rufo's series on Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools.
Spears was also involved in the Critical Race Theory-infused teacher training that the OEA has systematically been conducting district-wide; that training started even before the term "CRT" entered the public lexicon and well before the pandemic.
Along with another former OEA staffer, Lauryn Mascarenaz, Spears formed a Critical Race Theory training organization called "RISE DEI." Mascarenaz, a former Southern Poverty Law Center staffer, was one of the OEA's first hires following its formation.
More To The Story
Due to the number of speakers that signed up, the public comments portion of the meeting was split into two parts.
During the second part of public comments, former school board candidate Becky Lew Hobbs talked about the large number of parents who have addressed the board about obscene materials in the district as well as "many other failures of the school system, only to fall on deaf or condescending ears."
Hobbs acknowledged Supt. Catty Moore's departure and examined what Moore left behind her since taking the post in 2018.
"Academic proficiencies have declined," Hobbs said. "Reading scores for third graders have declined 5% overall and when you look at Black proficiency rates, that alone has declined 32% under her rule. Hispanics the same - 32%."
"Math 1 scores for middle and high school, students have declined 34% overall,” said Hobbs. “And when you look at Black student proficiency rates, that's declined 42%; Hispanics declined 41%."
Hobbs also noted that there are more low-performing schools in the district than in the past under Moore's tenure. 19.7% or 38 schools.
"As you can see, the quality of education under Catty Moore has suffered, particularly for minority students. And because of this, parents have begun to seek other options,” Hobbs said, adding that approximately 3,500 students have left the district under Moore despite the county's population growing by over 2%.
Hobbs also criticized Moore for asking for budget increases every year, "resulting in a 47% increase since 2018."
Hobbs’ criticism of Moore didn’t stop there, she also slammed Moore for not engaging parents during the pandemic but instead working to "keep students out of the classroom" and later "sometimes barred parents from being present at all" at their child's school.
"At one point, her staff recommended masking preschoolers in order to train them to willingly comply with future orders."
The staffer referred to by Hobbs is Paul Koh, who made national headlines in 2022 with his statements to the board that masking kids at age two would help them "accept full mask compliance" and help to "normalize it later."
Hobbs closed out her remarks by saying Moore "allowed quality academics to take a backseat to social issues, political agendas, and association demands."
By association demands, Hobbs is referring to the Wake County chapter of the N.C. Association of Educators, an NEA affiliate.
Reverend John Amanchukwu, who has become a persistent attendee of the WCPSS school board meetings as well as other boards in both North Carolina and other states, also made an appearance. His remarks begin around the 3:03:50 mark.
Amanchukwu brought a book called "Worm Loves Worm," which he said is a "form of mental rape" because "it assaults the soul, it stains the brain, and it robs children of their innocence."
He went on to say anyone who endorses the book is a "mental rapist" and that applies to librarians, board members, and superintendents.
Amanchukwu says the book is about two worms that get married and the book says they can be "both grooms and brides - it's all interchangeable." He noted the book is for children as young as five.
"This is what you call gender confusion," Amanchukwu said. He went on to say the point of the book is to "change normative behaviors."
Amanchukwu read a text message he received from a homosexual man named "Walt."
"Sorry, I am gay and even I understand that children are being groomed to adopt a form of sexuality early on. This is not how children learn and grow, but how children are deceived and programmed to receive what was previously unacceptable."
"Now, ya'll can label my words as hate speech. homophobia, bigot, a Black man in America who doesn't know his place because I choose not to be a liberal," said Amanchukwu. "You can call it whatever you want but at the end of the day, is Walt using hate speech? He agrees with me because Walt knows this: in order for a person to be homosexual, it takes a person who is a heterosexual to create them."
He added two gay men or two gay women can't reproduce and called out member Chris Heagarty by going on to say, "It takes a heterosexual, Chris, as you roll your eyes."
Before being cut off, he also called out Tyler Swanson for pretending to leave his chair and "walk out because you're angry."
Below is the full video of the June 20 meeting.
The public comments section 1 begins just after the 52:00 mark and section 2 begins around the 2:21:50 mark.