By Anna Noel
Yorktown News-View
The regular meeting of the YISD Board took place on Monday, Oct. 11, at 7:30 p.m. After the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence, the floor was opened to public comments. First to speak was local pastor Mark Collins.
He thanked the board members and staff for their service to the school, then began, “I’ve done a little research since we were here on the Achieve3000 situation. From what I have gleaned, we got COVID money, as many schools across America did, and then they said, ‘Hey, let us know what you’re spending this on, and here’s a pre-approved program that’s great’. And so any time I hear, ‘We’re the government, we’re here to help,’ it kind of concerns me. From the research I’ve been able to glean, there’s a lot of junk that’s in there that really concerns me. I would really implore that we consider not using any of that curriculum. I know we probably spent a lot of money on it, but unless we can really sift through it, there’s a lot of dangerous stuff in there that I think could be detrimental to our kiddos.” He closed out by praying over the Board and school.
The next speaker was Gene Henry.
“First off, I admire the fact that you still honor the American flag, a lot of places around the country no longer do that. My little speech was based on the fact that y’all were planning on pushing this agenda which apparently maybe you’re not thinking about doing, but I’m still going to read it as I wrote it because I think everybody, including everybody here, needs to hear it.
“In my seven decades of life, I never imagined I would see our society sink so low into the gutter. I’ll be frank. The socialists in America work diligently to undermine and delete our Constitution, the law of this great country, a country conceived and crafted on the moral principles of our founding fathers. It can not survive without these principles. You could ask how what I just said is related to the emergency relief fund. If you would poll parents and taxpayers around here, you would find that perverted or Marxist topics for study or reading are not acceptable, and these people are rightly outraged that school officials would even consider them to be acceptable. This type of anti-American curriculum has developed as a result of the very lack of morals and principles that I just got through mentioning.
“At least 20% of the ARP (American Rescue Plan) funds are mandated to be spent on, as they call it, “evidence-based interventions that respond to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs”. It sounds innocent enough, but this is very problematic in practice. This program has included such things as free anti-racist therapy for white educators. The material abounds with wording about transgenderism, social justice, equity, diversity, etc, meant to manipulate students toward marxism."
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