Two Ohio parents who have denounced a well-known private school their children attended for allegedly inculcating critical race theory (CRT) ideas are speaking out after the school denied reenrollment to their children.
“The school said Andrea Gross and Amy Gonzalez leveled ‘false and misleading attacks’ on Columbus Academy and its leadership,” ABC 6 reported. “Columbus Academy sent a letter to the two families informing them their three children will not be re-enrolled at the school this fall. One of the children is a high school junior and has attended the school since kindergarten.”
“No child has ever been denied re-enrollment to Columbus Academy because a parent raised questions, concerns or criticisms about a child’s education,” the school said in a statement. “However, any parent who waged a public campaign of false and misleading statements and inflammatory attacks harmful to the employees, the reputation, or the financial stability of Columbus Academy would be in clear violation of the enrollment agreement.”
On Wednesday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked Gross and Gonzales, the founders of the “Pro-CA Coalition,” which advocates against teaching critical race theory at Columbus Academy, “Were you surprised that the school decided to punish your children for what you did?”
Gross responded, “Yes. I would say we were very surprised that the school decided to retaliate against our children. Unfortunately, just asking questions has resulted in our children being punished.”
Asked what they told their daughters about this decision, Gonzales responded, “What we’ve realized is that it seems that our school leadership favors a tribalistic approach, and we believe in the power of the individual. So we had to explain to our children, my daughter actually asked me, ‘Do they have a good reason to support that? Do they know who I am?’ I had to share her report card with her, and she wondered if they had read her teacher’s comments and how she is an advocate of the CARES program at our school. And so we decided to explain that you choose to do the right thing and that’s what moral courage is. You’re trying to stand on the shoulders of truth, even if you aren’t sure that the outcome is going to be.”
“I think the problem at our school is, in particularly our board, they are breeching a fiduciary duty to our entire community by failing to speak to us,” Gross stated. “This all started because we actually just wanted to come forward and have just an open dialogue of communication, and we just wanted to ask questions: What is the curriculum? Are you teaching the 1619 Project? Why did you double the diversity department but you have no learning specialists for our children 3 to 12 years old in the school?”
“The diversity department specifically doubled this year while our kids 3 to 12 had no learning specialist in our lower school this year,” she added. “So it’s a choice of where they’re going to allocate their finances, and we believe that the way that they do it is in a discriminatory manner because they neglect our Latino population, they neglect our kids that learn differently. There are other minority groups in our school that feel that their voices are not heard or represented. There are kids that have just even religion in our school can be problem at times, for kids that observe Catholicism, that has been an issue. So it’s a tribalization and it’s to separate so that we all start to try to tear each other down which unfortunately that is what happened.”
The head of the school and the president of the Board of Trustees wrote a letter to Gross (published in full on the ABC 6 website, with the names of the children redacted) in which they stated, “Your actions caused pain, and even fear for physical safety, among students, families, faculty and staff. … You also continue to use threats to Columbus Academy’s reputation and its finances as a means to accomplish your personal objectives.”
The letter referred to a podcast the two women in which the two women participated in which the hosts used incendiary rhetoric when discussing the school. The letter claimed, “At no point during the interview did you challenge or push back on a single word the hosts said, not even when they said “the only way way to deal with these people is to burn down their entire existence.” The letter also cited a promotional video the women allegedly appeared in that reportedly made misleading claims about the school.
“I believe they are trying to send a message to the other members of our coalition that if you speak out and you ask questions that they will punish your innocent children, and our members are afraid. … Separating people by the color of their skin is regressive, we are not just anti-racist, we are also pro-human,” Gross said according to ABC 6. Gonzalez, whose daughter is Latina, echoed, “When they are bringing DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, it just doesn’t seem like inclusivity. Seems more like inherent bigotry.”
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Source: Dailywire
