Thread by @dianeshanef

This video is a MUST WATCH for *every* community & school district in the US who faced attacks on public ed via school board elections in ’22.

We won our fight here in Carmel. Barely. Against an impossibly well-resourced campaign backed by local hate group #M4LHamCo...

1/

…our community managed to elect two board members who support public education, and who care about ensuring that it’s accessible to and welcoming for ALL kids.

(The third, **amazing**, pro-public ed candidate lost, by a mere 90 votes. 💔😢)

2/

@myccs is safe, for the moment.

But the race itself has hurt our schools.

By running candidates who parroted their lies, by using their $$ & influence to dominate discourse, M4LHamCo DID, in fact, succeed in destabilizing our schools and shaking public confidence in them.

3/

Local parent Jim May laid this all out beautifully at last night’s board meeting, and proposed an idea for how the district could help communicate to the broader community the stakes of this type of discourse going forward.

Video is here. Thread that follows is transcript.

4/

"I’m Jim May. I’m a parent of two kids at Woodbrook Elementary.

5/

Over the past several months, our community has been subjected to a local manifestation of a national movement attacking public schools, their administrators, their teachers, their staff and, honestly, by extension many of their students and the families of those students.

6/

This past election season, across the country in white-majority suburbs, we saw slates of school board candidates running on nearly identical platforms of academic excellence, parents' rights, and increased transparency.

7/

I can’t speak to how ethical or unethical these cookie cutter campaigns were across the rest of the country, but here in Carmel, I’m comfortable saying that the campaign we saw was built extensively on misinformation, dishonesty and outright lies.

8/

That campaign failed insomuch as the candidates did not achieve their goal of gaining control of the school board.

But, our community still has to pay a variety of costs for their behavior.

9/

As a parent, I would like to see the school system use a survey or some other means to give a voice to our teachers and staff while protecting their anonymity.

I would like to hear from them about how it feels to have members of their community call them "gr**m*rs,". . .

10/

. . . insinuate they’re pedophiles, say they’re exposing kids to pornography, claim they’re making children ashamed of their skin color, and state that they’re brainwashing our children with political indoctrination -- which were all claims made this last political season.

11/

I would like some insight into how their morale has been impacted by having these--for lack of a better word--paranoid delusions treated as credible.

12/

I would also like to see an attempt going forward to document how these types of attacks impact our ability both to retain and attract top tier teachers and staff to our school system.

13/

It seems likely that we’ll see these types of tactics used again in the future and I believe our community should understand what their use costs us.

14/

I’d like to close by saying thank you to the board, the administration and, most of all, the teachers and staff who work with our kids on a daily basis. I know that the vast majority of parents recognize and truly appreciate all that you do for our children."

15/

@CI_Carmel @mjslaby @CorneliusWRTV @LeeVGaines @ArikaHerron @INCapChronicle @indyrecorder @MarkLatta11 @ChalkbeatIN @aleksappleton @momsforsj @DoRightGlendora @_dofd @IC4PE @Mister_L_Bear

Also, if anyone is NOT familiar with Jim May's efforts to call out disinformation and lies during the campaign, check out the website he built:

nobbs4ccs.com

Full video, with captions: