JUST IN: Okla.'s top edu official Ryan Walters says the state's social studies standards are going to be overhauled by a committee that includes Dennis Prager, David Barton, Steve Deace and Kevin Roberts

Roberts leads the Heritage Foundation, the group behind Project 25



here's the full announcement -- he says that it will align state standards with the "classical learning" model documentcloud.org/documents/2479…

NEW: An Oklahoma school district has had *six* consecutive days of bomb threats

Threats started after Libs of TikTok shared an out of context video of a district librarian, and the state’s top education official retweeted it

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/r… Here’s what Libs of TikTok posted - and a screenshot of the actual TikTok by the librarian (note the caption)

Conservatives took control of a school board in a small mountain town within a heavily GOP county

I spoke to lifelong Republicans and conservative Christians who are furious over what the board has done since

NEW @NBCNews story →

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/w… This district did not face protests over CRT or trans student policies, but in 2021, a group of conservatives won election and quickly began moving to implement policy changes.

One member described it as a “divide, scatter, conquer” strategy that he said “Trump was great at”

Here's a thread of the 20 politicians who've falsely claimed this year that schools are accommodating who kids identify as cats, putting litter boxes on campus for them Lauren Boebert, Congresswoman:

"They are putting litter boxes in schools for people who identify as cats. Durango is doing this. This is how extreme it is."

(Durango is not doing this)
coloradotimesrecorder.com/2022/10/they-a…

NEW:
We found 20 right wing candidates and elected officials who’ve publicly claimed this year schools are accommodating kids who identify as cats, letting them only talk in meows or installing litter boxes

It’s an obvious hoax, but they keep saying it

nbcnews.com/tech/misinform… The pols say this is what furries do.

It’s not.

We know because we talked to a professor who’s interviewed thousands of furries, as well as teenaged furries

🧵

The attempts to ban books has fully moved from school libraries to public libraries

I wrote about one example in the story published today, but I have a list of other examples from the past month

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/c… A group of conservative residents in a Michigan town successfully campaigned in favor of defunding the local library after its board said it would not ban books,

(I've seen far-right activists on Facebook and Telegram hold this up as inspiration)
freep.com/story/news/loc…

NEW: Far-right activists w/ties to a Christian nationalist movement are pushing to recall a public library's trustees over LGBTQ books

But the library doesn't even have any of the books

Now the library director is quitting over the "extremism" she faced

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/c… Locals have repeatedly asked the library to judge books under God's standards, not the world's standards, and quoted Bible verses at library trustees meetings

NEW: I spent the weekend at the Moms For Liberty national summit, where activists were trained on vetting candidates, messaging and running for office -- in between speeches by Ron DeSantis, Betsy DeVos, Rick Scott and others

nbcnews.com/politics/polit… Rick Scott said these activists' efforts at the school board level are going to help Republicans take back the Senate

In Florida alone, Moms For Liberty expects to endorse around 60 candidates

nbcnews.com/politics/polit…

A school district near Dallas, Texas ripped down LGBTQ ally symbols, functionally shut down a student newspaper, barred faculty from being part of GSA meetings, and now plans to terminate an openly gay teacher

My new @nbcnews story explains what happened

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/l… @NBCNews It all started with the principal of MacArthur High School ordering that small rainbow stickers, which teachers had posted to show they're an LGBTQ ally, be scrapped off of classroom doors. She says the district told her to do it.

But then teachers asked questions

Here's a new story w/ @oneunderscore__: Parents have started showing up to school board meetings with phony insurance claims

They think they’ve found a secret legal trick to force schools to do their bidding

But it’s all a sham

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/p… Who is leading them? Meet Miki Klann, who’s been posting videos with her thoughts

She’s a QAnon follower who thinks AIDS is a hoax and that the Earth is flat

NEW w/ @Mike_Hixenbaugh: Activist groups that have protested critical race theory are now focusing on another issue: mental and emotion health initiatives in schools

Quick thread to explain

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/p… The activists believe these programs are a "Trojan horse" to "brainwash" kids into believing progressive ideas about race and gender.

Others say they object to surveys of students about whether they feel welcome at school as "data mining" efforts, and are concerned about privacy

Let me introduce you to Nancy Davis Womac.

In 1979, she was living in an orphanage when she fell in love with a boy and got pregnant at 16

The orphanage sent her away to a place called Bethesda Home for Girls, where they took her baby away At Bethesda, which was founded by fundamentalist preacher Lester Roloff, she and other girls spent all their time cleaning and praying.

If they broke a rule, they were beaten. The doors and windows were locked, and they couldn’t make phone calls.

NEW: Facing anti-critical race theory protests, educators are resigning, and teachers are being punished over lessons about racial issues and over student projects that mention Black Lives Matter

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/c… @NBCNews In one case in Connecticut, hundreds of students and alumni demanded the district do more to combat racism. Then the district hired its first Black superintendent, started initial steps to address bias, and backlash arrived

The superintendent resigned 10 months into the job

NEW from me, @oneunderscore__ @BrandyZadrozny: If you're wondering why your school district is suddenly seeing a bunch of activism around whether it's teaching critical race theory -- this is why

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/c… @oneunderscore__ @BrandyZadrozny We identified at least 165 local and national activist groups dedicated to trying to stop critical race theory from being taught (no public school says it is teaching it).

There are also 50 recall efforts launched already this year aimed at unseating 126 school board members

The husband and wife owners of a Christian boarding school face a combined 102 felony charges after a criminal probe sparked by women speaking out on TikTok

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/c… We published an investigative story in September on the allegations from more than two dozen women who say they were abused at this facility for "troubled teens"

Many times they tried to report it, but the ranch stayed open until 2020

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/g… @NBCNews

Here is what Biden's executive order on Title IX says

This is the first step toward his promise to undo the Trump/DeVos Title IX regs, which will likely be a lengthy process nbcnews.com/politics/2020-… As a reminder, these regs are NOT just rules governing how colleges adjudicate campus rape cases.

These govern K-12 schools too, and have a profound impact there

nbcnews.com/news/education…

A 14-year-old girl told school administrators she was sexually assaulted by multiple male classmates.

The school suspended her later that day for inappropriate behavior.

I examined 26 cases like this for @The74 to figure out what the hell is going on

the74million.org/article/school… These cases are happening around the country, and appear to disproportionately impact girls of color

There are some updates in a case I wrote about in December, in which an athletic trainer in Montana named James Jensen is said to have abused and molester dozens of boys throughout the 80s and 90s

buzzfeednews.com/article/tylerk… Jensen called his molestation at his home "The Program." Following a parent complaint, school officials told him, according to a document I first revealed, to end his "Mentoring Programs" (their caps) & stop having kids over to his house
documentcloud.org/documents/5556…

NEW from me: An investigation into a school for troubled teens, where girls say they were punished for being gay or bi, pulled off anti-anxiety meds cold turkey, and had their diet limited to peanut-butter sandwiches when they wouldn't cooperate

buzzfeednews.com/article/tylerk… One student said she was punished for attempting to kill herself, and never got psychiatric treatment for the incident.

I saw her scars.

Employees confirmed students are disciplined for self-harm