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Our understanding is that the Burgos Resolution WILL be brought up for a vote on Monday. We have heard that there may be a move afoot to delay until November so language can be worked out that can garner more votes.
As always, we urge you to communicate your thoughts to the board. That doesn’t make you a member of a mob or a terrorist—that makes you a public school parent, taxpayer and community member who cares a lot about what happens in our local schools.
Please weigh in with the board about what YOU think. You can email board members through the WCS site or through Roar.
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Burgos described her resolution as a “statement.” Below is the background we posted on 10/15:
There is zero evidence that WCS seventh graders are being indoctrinated – i.e. pushed to believe and adhere – to Islam. ZERO. We have not heard of a single parent with a WCS seventh grade student who has said there was any religious indoctrination. Given that the basic standards have been in place since 2000, tens of thousands of WCS kids have been taught under the current curriculum standards.
This whole issue of alleged Muslim indoctrination is being driven by political activists. It appears that this is about politics, NOT kids. Organizations are even fundraising off it! We think our school board should keep its focus on actual issues in our schools.
To think that WCS’s (mostly Christian) teachers are knowingly or unknowingly indoctrinating their (primarily Christian) students into Islam strikes us as both laughable and offensive.
Burgos’ resolution proposes both local changes and state changes: textbooks and terrorists, verifying “theological truthfulness,” changing history standards to reflect “Tennessee values,” and excluding an understanding of world religions from tests.
Read Burgos’ proposed resolution for yourself and make up your own mind.
The Broader Context
We also want to note that the broader context for the statewide “our kids are being indoctrinated into Islam” campaign has gotten even uglier.
As you recall, the ACLJ said that students are “being forced to learn how to convert to Islam” and that our schools are “censoring Christianity and proselytizing Islam.”
That inflammatory rhetoric is—among other things—insulting to teachers and administrators, once again saying they cannot tell the difference between educating about a religion and proselytizing for a religion.
In White County, statewide professional activists pulled out all the stops including paid print and radio ads encouraging people to turn out to a town hall meeting “to oppose Islamic indoctrination in local schools.” The radio ads say: “The threat of Islam is not in far off countries. It’s in our classrooms in White County.” Fox 17 reported that “Overton County actually stopped teaching the section altogether recently and opponents, including former radio show host Steve Gill, plan to push for similar moves in the 20 to 30 districts that are using the book [published by Pearson].”