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.

My oldest child started kindergarten in one of Michigan's top suburban school districts during the pandemic. Our already unusual start only intensified when school board meetings turned into heated battlefields. None of these bizarre disruptions felt quite right, so I leaped to become the "Erin Brockovich" of Michigan schools to connect the dots.


My observations and experiences involved:


  • Multiple failed recall attempts by local attack groups on our district's duly elected school board
  • District lawsuits filed by Moms for Liberty members
  • Traveling tours of public commenters, including those from hours away
  • Staged gubernatorial stump speeches during school board meeting public comments
  • Theatrical book passage readings to promote bans
  • Sign stealing, doxxing, and social media harassment
  • Violent verbal threats against district leaders and parents
  • Disinformation-filled "vote no" campaigns about candidates, bonds and millages, and bathrooms
  • Misinformation about curriculum, media center materials, and sex-ed


In 2022, I stepped up to host a 13-candidate school board forum, connect Michigan school supporters, advocate for students, and fight a machine that is anything but "a grassroots group of concerned parents." Truth in our community helped shield our district from further harm. Every community deserves the truth.


I am one suburban mom whose kids and teachers were victimized by a playbook at the local level. I was captivated and horrified to learn the rest.


But I can't combat heavily funded disinformation alone. I created Michigan School Scoop to centralize hours of research, reading, and resources to correct critics and build strength in numbers. This project has been a labor of love for my family, future learners, our schools, and our educators.


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


Becky



Guiding Principles:

  • 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