🚨🚨🚨Fellow Public Ed loving Texans, settle in for a story about the diabolical plan unfolding in @KellerISD & how it may have wide devastating impacts on school districts across TX. In December, we received a tip our School Board was secretly planning to split our district. /1 We read chapter 13 of the education code and realized our board may have found themselves a loophole to entirely circumvent the requirement of a public election. @GinaForAustin @jamestalarico /2 amp.star-telegram.com/news/local/edu…

Read this whole thread. As someone who lives here in North Texas, I’m here to tell the rest of you, the stuff that’s brewing here is wild. And it’s a well coordinated plan. There’s SO MUCH money funneling in to it. And so many local GOP politicians have bought in to the plan. /1

https://twitter.com/mike_hixenbaugh/status/1839509050586743142

This is the money at play in North Texas: “a plan to "crush liberal dominance at the choke points of influence and power in our society…The goal should be to direct "funding to operationalize or weaponize the conservative vision.” /2 @HansNichols axios.com/2024/09/12/leo…

More disappointment coming out of @KellerISD. One of our HS was just told (w/no explanation) they are no longer allowed to perform “The Laramie Project.” It had already been approved AND cast. The principal & District Fine Arts Direc did NOT make this decision. @MattShepardFDN /1

The play being pulled is completely unsurprising. Our board is openly anti-LGBTQ+ Just last year, the @ACLUTx said in a statement: Keller ISD's discriminatory acts barring books…on an openly anti-LGBTQ+ basis create a pervasively hostile atmosphere for
LGBTQ+ students.” /2

Let me tell you a story of how I found out our @KellerISD school board trustees snuck an Evangelist film crew into my child’s high school last week & filmed him & many other students without permission. 🧵/1 wfaa.com/article/news/l… My son came home from school last week & told me a film crew from the Netherlands doing a documentary on “American schools” filmed him & his friends at lunch he said The school board was w/them. I called my mom friends. They were hearing similar stories from their kids. /2

My school board, @KellerISD, will pass a resolution this Monday night to allow our highly educated school counselors to be replaced by untrained & unlicensed volunteer chaplains. And our untrained & unlicensed trustees will determine what the chaplains will do in the district. /1





The law which allows for all this- SB 763- & the resolution written by our trustees, seemingly gives these chaplains (& incidentally board trustees) power to implement any programs, services, or support they desire & have it paid for w/ state safety & security funds. /2

Settle in for more absurdity coming out of @kellerisd: Outrageous complaints received about books on our library preview purchase list. These titles have all been scratched from purchase for further review using our district bookbanning rubric. Here are the laughable complaints/1 Little People Big Dreams, @TheAmandaGorman by @QuartoKids challenge: “Traces of CRT in it…..It makes it sound like it’s okay to judge a book by the authors skin color…” /2

Fellow PublicEd loving Texans, settle in for a 🤯story about who seems to be behind the new far right TASB alternative (TEE @tx4excellence) being promoted by @NateSchatzline @TimothyOHare & @Julie4TX. 🧵/1 @cjtackett @Forrest4Trees @stevanzetti @brianlopeztx @Mike_Hixenbaugh This secretive org trying to infiltrate TX public schools is registered in Delaware & Its website lists a fake address & no leadership. When TEE popped up meddling in our school board races here in @KellerISD & @GCISD this past year, us parents decided to investigate /2

This new org vying to replace @tasbnews is trying desperately to hide its founders & funding. And they don’t want us to know they meddled in & funded school board races all over north Texas this year. But us parents in NTX have put the Monty Bennett pieces together.

https://twitter.com/cjtackett/status/1665415675987329024

Bennett already tried to sneak into public schools in Wimberly and now he’s trying all over the state. texasmonthly.com/news-politics/…

The Texas legislature just voted to allow school boards to replace public school counselors with “no certification needed chaplains.” These are the same people who say they want schools to stick to “reading, science & math” instead of “indoctrination.” Some Dems (@jamestalarico ) in the TX house tried to make the bill slightly less terrifying by adding an amendment requiring parent permission for kids to meet w/ chaplains. Also stipulations protecting the religious freedom and the rights of all students. The amendment failed.

I spent yesterday poll greeting for our school board race here in Texas. This unhinged woman is yelling at a very sweet (& very Christian) LONG time English teacher here in @KellerISD. And no surprise, these people-the far right fear mongering book banners prevailed at the polls. And this manufactured outrage over books (that aren’t anywhere near young children) was happening while families were being slaughtered at the mall 30 miles away. This is hell. This is Texas. How can I keep raising my children here? 😭😭😭

Hey book loving Twitter, buckle up for a wild ride, I’m about to share with you some of the challenges & complaints my school district has received from community members just this school year about books they don’t want in our libraries. But first, a little background info 🧵 Our district has a policy requiring librarians post their book purchase requests online for 30 days for public review. ANY book w/complaints submitted during the 30day window is pulled from the list for “review.”Then our school board reviews complaints & they decide what to buy.

When your local book banners tell you they just want to save children from sexuality explicit material, they’re lying. They want to erase people & stories that make them uncomfortable.@KellerISD @cat_clarke @JazzJennings__ @mahogonybrowne @acevedowrites @oliviagatwood @LisaBunker Our school board created a rubric that bans all books at every grade level that simply depict trans people & non binary ideas, Which means most of these books will likely be pulled for at least 10 years.

Today, @NateSchatzline a sitting rep in @TexasHouse RTd a tweet from far-right political strategist @ErikLeist where he made wildly untrue (& laughable) claims about me & doxxed me & my family. They shared my home address to intimidate & harass me. My family is now at risk.🧵 I’m a mom in TX fighting against extremism, book banning, & the politicization of my children’s classrooms. The man doxxing my family was hired by the legislator who also doxxed me, the PAC that took over my school board, & 4 of my school board trustees. I won’t be silenced. /2

Just got word that today, the day Before school starts, @KellerISD has informed teachers & librarians to remove all previously challenged books from school shelves. Even the books that passed the challenge committees. The Diary of Anne Frank, Graphic Nov. is on this list. 🧵/1 2/ These books went through the official district established challenge committee process. But because they all passed the committee process, our extremist Christian nationalist school board decided the process was “rigged.” Sound familiar? (2020 election)