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Moms Blast School For ‘Punishing’ Their Daughters After Critical Race Theory Criticism

By • July 9, 2021 5:08 pm

Two parents from Ohio have come forward after their children were refused re enrollment at a well-known private school after they had previously condemned the institution for supposedly instilling ideas of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to their kids.

“The school said Andrea Gross and Amy Gonzalez leveled ‘false and misleading attacks’ on Columbus Academy and its leadership,”according to local outlet ABC 6. 

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It added that “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,” Columbus Academy added.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Gross and Gonzalez — who are also founders of the “Pro-CA Coalition” which is fighting against teaching critical race theory at Columbus Academy, in his show on Wednesday. 

He asked them if they were surprised that the school decided to punish their children by denying them re enrollment for what the parents did of campaigning against Critical Race Theory.

 

“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,” Gross told Tucker Carlson.

Gonzales, for her part, noted that she had to explain the decision of the school to her daughter.

“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,” she said.

“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.”

Gross: “We just wanted to ask questions”

Gross added that the whole incident started from the parents just wanting to ask the school questions.

“I think the problem at our school is, in particular our board, they are breaching a fiduciary duty to our entire community by failing to speak to us,” Gross told Tucker.

“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?” she added.

“The diversity department specifically doubled this year while our kids 3 to 12 had no learning specialist in our lower school this year,” Gross further explained. “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 a 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 is what happened,” she added.

Meanwhile, in response, the head of the school and the president of the Board of Trustees wrote a letter to Gross saying that the actions of the conservative advocate mom “caused pain” and “even fear for physical safety” among Columbus Academy’s  students, families, faculty and staff. 

“You continue to use threats to Columbus Academy’s reputation and its finances as a means to accomplish your personal objectives,” the school head said.

The letter then referenced a podcast where the two conservative moms participated and the hosts used “incendiary rhetoric” when talking about the school.

“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 to deal with these people is to burn down their entire existence,’” the letter claimed. 

The letter also noted that the moms put up a promotional video and made “misleading claims” about Columbus Academy.

“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 as reported by ABC 6.

Gonzalez, who has a Latina daughter added: “When they are bringing DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, it just doesn’t seem like inclusivity. Seems more like inherent bigotry.”

Steeve Strange

Steeve is the CEO & Co-Founder of The Scoop.
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