Meet MI School Scoop

Private and public school experiences shaped me, but I draw the line at disrupting the lives of students and staff members for personal gain and political clout.

MI School Scoop is a project three years in the making. My oldest child started kindergarten in a desirable suburban district during the pandemic. Our already unusual start turned troubling when school board meetings became battlegrounds for the latest effort to privatize education. We've endured:

• Two failed recall attempts by local attack groups on our district's school board
• Three election cycles for school board, bonds, and millages
• Campaign sign-stealing incidents
• Traveling tours of public commenters, including from hours away
• Staged gubernatorial stump speeches
• Dramatic book readings in hopes of bans
• Secret recordings of our former superintendent and school staff
• Scary verbal threats against district leaders
• And, personally, a mix of name-calling, social media bullying, and profanity-filled physical intimidation tactics whispered into my ear (from the traveling tour of public commenters)

Locked in arms with fellow public school parents, we've learned how this game works and continues to evolve. We stepped up to fight a machine that is anything but "a grassroots group of concerned parents." And I want to help you. MI School Scoop centralizes resources to correct critics and build strength in numbers.

A distaste for deception inspired this mission. Protecting public schools powers its purpose.

Becky

• Public funds are for public schools because Michigan children have the right to free, quality, and equitable education free of discrimination.
• School buildings are inappropriate venues to campaign for privatization agendas. Our educators, media center staff, and students are off-limits and should not be harassed or leveraged as pawns.
• Public education isn't the only path. Advocating for alternative education models is anyone's right, but morally, the argument should not require disrupting everyone else's lives, learning, safety, and employment to make a "case."
• School board meetings deserve decorum and civil discourse among attendees, and it's beyond time to let them get back to business.
• Parents and students have options in their education, thanks to Michigan's Schools of Choice program and ways to opt students in or out of lessons and content.
• Michigan schools are following Michigan Code "380.10" and respecting parental rights, which courts have reinforced:

"While parents may have a fundamental right to decide whether to send their child to a public school, they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child. Whether it is the school curriculum, the hours of the school day, school discipline, the timing and content of examinations, the individuals hired to teach at the school, the extracurricular activities offered at the school, or a dress code, these issues of public education are generally 'committed to the control of state and local authorities.'"

Blau v. Fort Thomas Public Schools