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Sen. Marsha Blackburn Introduces Bill To Harden Private Schools Like Covenant With Enhanced Security, Armed Officers


BY: JORDAN BOYD | MARCH 30, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/30/sen-marsha-blackburn-introduces-bill-to-harden-private-schools-like-covenant-with-enhanced-security-armed-officers/

School resource officer unlocks door

Mere days after a shooter killed three 9-year-old students and three staff members at a private Christian school in Nashville, Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee introduced a new bill that would funnel $900 million worth of taxpayer dollars to both public and private schools to hire armed security and “harden” classrooms with enhanced physical defenses.

The Securing Aid for Every (SAFE) School Act, if passed, will give states financial leverage to establish training and licensing programs for veterans and former law enforcement officers to protect private and public schoolchildren from threats like shooters. It will also offer grants to schools to install surveillance cameras, metal detectors, alarm systems, and locks in hallways and classrooms.

“Schools should be places where children are safe to learn, play, and be children. And every parent should have the confidence that when they send their children off to school, they will return home safely. We must work together to protect our children at school and that means increasing security,” Blackburn said.

Unlike government schools which already receive taxpayer dollars to harden their buildings, private schools are often left to find and fund school resource officers (SROs) on their own. Historically speaking, that means schools like Covenant, which did not have an armed security guard at the time of the tragedy, are the kinds of soft targets murderous shooters seek.

Data shows good guys with guns and strict physical security measures deter and stop bad guys. Metropolitan Nashville Police Department confirmed this not just with officers’ rapid and effective response but when it revealed that the suspect planned to hit another location but was discouraged by “too much security.”

Yet, both public and private Christian schools have difficulty affording and retaining school resource officers.

More and more states including Tennessee want to mandate that schools hire armed guards to patrol campus during educational hours but Democrats have repeatedly rejected legislation designed to sponsor and codify security overhauls that would keep American students from being sitting ducks. Their activist allies, similarly, say no one including teachers should carry in the classroom.

Proponents of hardening schools say Congress should act swiftly to pass this legislation so that lives across the nation will be saved from future tragedies.

“We can’t predict where or when the next school shooting will happen, but we know how it will be stopped: by a security officer with a gun,” Andrew Pollack, father of Parkland victim Meadow Pollack, said. “The police reacted bravely in Nashville, but in a shooting every second matters and the SAFE School Act will save lives by ensuring that more schools are guarded by armed security officers.”


Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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‘They want parents indoctrinated’: Several woke NYC private schools require parents to take ‘anti-racism’ training, sign pledges — or else


By CANDACE HATHAWAY | October 22, 2022

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/several-woke-nyc-private-schools-require-parents-to-take-anti-racism-training-sign-pledges/

Photo by: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

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Several New York City private schools mandate woke training for parents — and some parents said if they refuse to participate in the controversial programs, their children will not be admitted to the schools.

The New York Post reported that at least five elite private schools in the city require parents to attend training in “anti-racism” and “diversity, equity and inclusion.”

One of the academies accused of pushing controversial theories is Brearley School, an all-girls private school in Manhattan. The student application states that “parents are expected to attend two diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism (DEIA) workshops per school year.”

THAT’S THE ATTITUDE OF SOCIALISM

Parents are also expected to write 500-word essays swearing their allegiance to those values, and should their child be accepted into the elite school, parents must sign an oath pledging their support of those values.

“We expect teachers, staff members, students and parents to participate in anti-racist training and to pursue meaningful change through deliberate and measurable actions. These actions include identifying and eliminating policies, practices and beliefs that uphold racial inequality in our community,” the pledge reads.

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Andrew Gutmann, whose daughter had been enrolled at the school, wrote a public letter criticizing the private school for pushing critical race theory.

“They want parents indoctrinated the same way they want their kids,” he stated.

Chapin School held an “optional” panel earlier this month for prospective parents to discuss the academy’s “ongoing commitment to equity & inclusion, including our newest community-wide initiatives.”

According to one mother, the panel discussion was anything but optional.

“They take attendance, they have name tags, there is someone from the admissions office to keep track of who goes and who doesn’t,” the mom told the Post. “If you don’t go, your child is not going to go very far in the admission process.”

Another mother stated that she was “talked to” by school officials after her son said boys are physically more capable at sports than girls. The mom said she was told her child “had to better understand the values of inclusion at the school, and I had to familiarize myself with the values of inclusion at the school and be clear with my child as to what they were so he arrived at school prepared.”

In 2020, Grace Church High School required students to sign an oath promising to stand against “racial propaganda” and to “interrupt biases.” “Respect for differing viewpoints is a fundamental commitment of the school,” a Grace spokesman said. The school added that it no longer requires children to sign the pledge.

Spence School, another all-girls school in New York City, “invited” parents to participate in a “Courageous Conversation equity workshop” hosted by a DEI consulting firm. “The opportunity to participate in the DEI program offered by PEG is strictly voluntary for parents,” a Spence spokesperson said. “These programs do not involve students.”

Horace Mann School, a college-preparatory institution, hosted a “family learning session” during which parents watched a presentation praising Robin DiAngelo, author of the book “White Fragility.”

“The workshop was designed to educate parents about what they were hearing not only in the news at the time but from their children. It was completely voluntary and if a parent rejected this instruction or the content, their children would be welcome at Horace Mann,” a spokesperson for the school told the Post.

Is This Story an Example of Things to Come?


Lesbian boss ‘fired me for being straight’

http://nypost.com/2013/12/18/lesbian-boss-fired-teacher-over-traditional-family-suit/

By Julia Marsh

December 18, 2013 | 5:44pm

Lesbian boss ‘fired me for being straight’

A married, heterosexual gym teacher at a tony Upper West Side private school was fired because his lesbian supervisor disapproved of his “traditional family status,” the canned teacher claims in a new Manhattan lawsuit.

Gregory Kenney, 50, taught gym at the Trinity School on W. 91st St. for 16 years before he was let go in June 2012.

Kenney, who lives with his wife and three young children in LI, says he was a well-liked employee at the elite institution that counts Truman Capote, Ivanka Trump and Eric Schneiderman as alumni, until a gay athletic director named Pat Krieger took over in 2009.

Krieger allegedly forced him to coach three sports, even though his contract only required him to join two teams, according to his reverse discrimination suit.

When he complained that the extra responsibilities interfered with his family obligations Krieger allegedly told him, “We all make choices,” the suit says.

After Kenney told Krieger that he couldn’t keep working nights and weekends, she reported him to the headmaster “while a single, female teacher faced no scrutiny when she refused to coach a third season.”

Kenney claims the allegedly biased athletic director “routinely favored other single, younger females without children and discriminated against [him] because of his gender, sexual orientation, ‘traditional family status,’ and age.”

“He felt ostracized because of his family,” Kenney’s attorney, Steven Morelli told The Post in an interview.

“He had been doing this for so many years and he certainly did the job well or they would have gotten rid of him a long time ago,” Morelli added.

Kenney coached soccer, basketball and golf at Trinity, where tuition costs as much as $41,370 a year.

“On at least one occasion Kenney was dissuaded from attending social events with his peers because he was a heterosexual, married male with children, who wouldn’t fit in with [Krieger’s] ‘culture.’”

He says three other married coaches with young children were also sacked. Kenney was replaced by a gay female, according to court papers.

Kenney, who has 7-year-old twins and a 9-year-old, is still looking for a new job.

He’s seeking unspecified damages in the suit.

A spokesman for Trinity did not immediately comment.

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