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On Thursday April 18, 2024 the Miamisburg School Board Miamisburg school board continued the past practice of abdicating their responsibility to provide oversight in the review of school educational curriculum. The Miamisburg school board is accountable to the voters that elected them. This includes insuring that school curriculum is properly reviewed to ensure it is beneficial to students and teaches values that will enable students to be successful in their lives.
In recent years school boards are increasingly deferring review of educational curriculum to the teachers unions, lobbyist and publishers that push agendas designed to indoctrinate and sow division. The transcript of the April 18, 2024 school board meeting tells the story of how the Miamisburg school board operates as a extension of the interests and agenda of teacher unions, curriculum publishers and special interests.
Jason Mowery, newly elected, appears to be the only school board member who believes that he has a responsibility to those who elected him to ensure that school curriculum is properly reviewed by all school board members in advance of approval.
Jason Mowery made a motion to delay approval of the Instructional material being adopted for the 2024 -2025 school year but could not secure a second to his motion from any of the other Miamisburg school board members. He recommended that the board hire an outside firm specializing in performing independent reviews.
Chris Amsler responded with "I will not micromanage every course textbook that we have" indicating that he has no interest in an independent review.
Nila Getter, stated that she "feels very confident in what was chosen by people who have the education and specialization".
Corey Dafler commented with "There's not a board member that's ever asked that. That doesn't make it a wrong ask. There's no intent to harm students or allow proper time to schedule training for the new material. This is just a different way of thinking that should be treated with equity and inclusion."
In the end the Miamisburg school board voted to approve the material without review. Jason Mowery voted no, Ann Niess, Chris Amsler, Nila Getter voted yes and Corey Dafler abstained.
Motion made and seconded to approve without board review
Nila Getter, without any of the Miamisburg school board having access to the material approved the motion to authorize the instructional material and Chris Amsler seconded Nila Getter's motion.
Jason Mowery responded by stating that "Policy BDCC says the agenda, together with supporting materials, is distributed to board members at least 48 hours prior to the board meeting to permit them to give items of business careful consideration. Now, that being said, I'd like to take a minute and clarify something that is critically important to have on the record this meeting, this evening, rather. We all sit here today as elected officials who have an oversight burden for the district on behalf of the taxpayers who voted for us to sit here for that very reason on their behalf."
Nila Getter, implied that there is no need for review when she stated that she "feels very confident in what was chosen by people who have the education and specialization"
Chris Amsler responded to Board member Jason Mowery with these comments: "So for me to sit here and micromanage every course textbook that we have, I'm not going to do. I have two curriculum directors. I have to have the confidence and the trust in them that they put forth. Plus, we also have committees. We have teachers that vet the information. ... , I don't have a problem with this because I believe that it's been reviewed viewed and processed through our curriculum directors or otherwise it wouldn't be here."
School board members have separate oversight
Jason Mowery responded with "believe that we have a separate oversight authority to represent voters in the community that put us in these chairs to vet this material on their behalf. This should be separate from the teachers and the teacher's union. Today, I met with Jordan Adams from Vermillion Education. His firm specializes in doing independent review for school boards. His curriculum audits often are done remotely with digital logins and passwords provided by the school districts.
Jason Mowery shares with the board questionable material being taught to fourth graders
Jason Mowery shared what he learned about the book Ladders, the Bill of Rights.
"I want to explain to you what brought me here. This is curriculum that was recently removed from the district. It was fourth grade social studies curriculum. I was interested in it because it was scheduled to be removed as part of the grade banding. I was interested to see how we were teaching the Bill of Rights, the US Constitution, and so on and so forth in American government."
"In the preface, it It says, Pay attention to the words, but also look at the pictures and features. This book is packed with eye-catching visual that give you a ton of additional information if you only pay attention to them. Then when I start to look at it and I see a huge picture of a police officer leading a German shepherd through a school district sniffing lockers with all the curriculum content in small print. Now, this was being put in front of a nine-year-old fourth grader.
Then I turned the page again. There's someone being arrested by the state police.
Then I turned the page again. It's an anti-death penalty protest saying
"Fry Fish, not People".
Jason Mowery denied access to review social study material in February
"When I see this, and I ask in February for digital access to look at the back-end of the social studies curriculum that replaced this, I still have not been provided with that."
I believe this serves as an example based on proof that I have a bona fide duty to speak up on behalf of the people that elected me to sit in this seat and keep these things out of our schools."
Jason Mowery's motion is ignored and the board votes to approve without board or independent review
"I would like to motion this be tabled until the board has been given time to review the material. According to the BDCC that says, the agenda together with supporting materials, the supporting materials have not been provided for us to approve this. If we're going to keep people from speaking, to take the time out of their lives to come and address this board. We need to be consistent and enforce the rules uniformly."
The Miamisburg school has a history of approving questionable material
This is not the only time that questionable material has been approved for use in the district by the Miamisburg School board. Other past concerns include:
Equity Fellows Program
Equity Fellows program purchased by the district last year promotes the view that people of color are oppressed by white oppressors.
Voice4Equity
voice4Eqity conference when Women Lead was to be attended by Superintendent Dr. Laura Blessing and Amy Dobson Director of Elementary Education. Analysis of the voice4equity website shows this organization to be a partisan organization that promotes the concepts of systemic bias, equity, social justice, systemic oppression and using history to promote an agenda.
The Miamisburg school board approved the funding for this trip at the March 16, 2023 school board meeting with unanimous approval. The trip was cancelled after parents and concerned citizens expressed concern about the Dr. Laura Blessing and Amy Dobson attending this conference.
Let your voice be known!
Attend the May 16, 2024 school board meeting to express your opinion.
Miamisburg Board of Education
540 E. Park Avenue, Miamisburg, Ohio
third Thursday of every month
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