Indoctrination in Your State & District

Hopewell Middle School 2020- BLM.ORG Articles in 8th grade Debate Class

Fulton County School District, Georgia

Submitted: 2021-08-15

Story:

In Fall of 2020, my son was a virtual 8th grader at Hopewell Middle School. His debate teacher assigned an article (I uploaded) putting BLM.ORG in an positive light. The assignment was a reading comprehension assignment. I waited a couple of days thinking since it's debate she will send out the opposing view. Wrong! The teacher said the kids are not savvy enough for that debate. Her comment was that " Many adults in this country do not understand the details of the BLM movement and philosophy"... "I would not expect middle schoolers to understand the topic much less debate it." Then why the in the world would you send out the article? The article was from Junior Scholastic which is a part of Scholastic Magazine which at the time at a banner at the top of their website stating support for BML.ORG. Thankfully Fulton County has an IKB policy where political/controversial issues must be approved by the principal/parent before the teachers hand them out. That was not done here. I escalated to Principal LeMoyne attaching the IKB Policy (attached). He stood by his teacher so I escalated to my District 2 Board Rep (like-minded like myself) and my District 2 Superintendent. The District 2 Superintendent responded immediately apologizing for the assignment and let Principal LeMoyne know this was NOT an unacceptable assignment and that Junior Scholastic was NOT a district approved resource as he stated. This is great but how many other parents followed up on this assignment or even knew about this assignment. My son knows about the dangers of BLM.ORG because he stays informed. We must encourage our kids to speak up in class.

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