#Duval County Public Schools

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the story of civil rights icon Rosa Parks was "too woke" for the Republican party during an impassioned speech from the House floor on Thursday.

The New York Democrat was speaking out against the Parents Bill of Rights Act, which House Republicans are expected to pass on Friday. The education oversight bill seeks to give parents more of a say in education, and would require public schools to make materials like curriculum and library books available online, as well as the school budget.

"But before they claim that this is not about banning books and not about harming the LGBT community, let's just look at the impacts of similar Republican legislation that has already passed on the state level. Look at these books that have already been banned due to Republican measures," Ocasio-Cortez said before holding up several books.

"'The Life of Rosa Parks' — this apparently is too woke by the Republican Party," she said, referencing a book by Kathleen Connors.

The book, which tells the story of Parks, a Black woman who refused to give up her seat to a white person, was among 176 titles banned in Florida's Duval County, according to the nonprofit PEN America. The Duval County Public Schools district at the time said the books on the list had not been banned but were under review.

In another incident, a textbook publisher used in Florida schools removed references to Parks's race in a draft lesson plan in an effort to comply with the state's Stop WOKE Act, legislation pushed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that limits instruction related to race and gender in schools. The Florida Department of Education later said the publisher was wrong to remove mention of Parks's race.

[probablyasocialecologist]

As Florida becomes ground zero in the push to remove books that touch on racism and LGBTQ+ people from public schools, more titles are ending up pulled from shelves and stuck in warehouses. But the tale of the banned books from Duval County is unusual for how it ends: Firestorm Books not only took in the rejected children’s stories, but is now sending them to anyone who requests them. Many of the books are heading back to Florida.

[...]

The 2022 “parental rights” law prohibited Florida schools from teaching students in kindergarten through third grade about topics involving sexual orientation or gender identity. Another law passed that year barred instruction that might make students “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” because they were forced to reflect on bad acts committed in the past by members of their race.

[reading-writing-revolution]

White supremacists now decide what your child can read in Florida.

A Florida teacher has been fired after a video he filmed of empty school library shelves went viral amid outrage over Gov Ron DeSantis’ alleged efforts to ban books.

Brian Covey, a parent and substitute teacher at Mandarin Middle School, filmed the video in a bid to show the consequences of Florida’s new “curriculum transparency law”. It has since racked up more than 13 million views.

[queerliblib]

At the end of this piece @autostraddle breaks down some things you can do:

Check out Daven McQueenss piece which breaks down how you can fight back against book bans.

Support and share information about those working to distribute books to people who need them, like the Queer Liberation Library, which has hundreds of free queer narratives for those who may not be able access those titles physically and Firestorm Books, who are raising money to redistribute the 22,500 books removed from the Duval County School Systems to the children and young people of Florida. If you have another organization you love, be sure to drop it in the comments section!

Get a library card and request the titles you’d like to see there. Not only does this help support authors and libraries, it also ensures books will be there waiting for people who need them. Added bonus: It’s really hot to have a library card!

If you’re looking to support Bluestockings specifically and you’re affiliated with an organization purchasing books, please consider placing your bulk orders from Bluestockings Cooperative and using them as your official book supplier. You can also check out their membership program, which helps them pay rent and keep the space public and open to all. If you’re in New York, be sure to stop by and get a free Narcan training.

[archivlibrarianist]

"'I got an email from an art teacher who said they're making [the art teacher] get rid of [their] art books,” [blogger and Duval County Public Schools teacher Chris Guerrieri] told Motherboard. 'They can’t even have their books in the classroom. Like they can't just like, cover them up and put them to the side.'"

Another teacher posted video of what that looks like.

Tweet here.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Ted Littleford]

* * * *

When Florida governor Ron DeSantis last March signed the law commonly called the “Don’t Say Gay” law, he justified it by its title: the “Parental Rights in Education” law. It restricted the ability of schoolteachers to mention sexual orientation or gender identity through grade 3, and opponents noted that its vagueness would lead teachers to self-censor.

Under the guise of protecting children, DeSantis echoed authoritarians like Hungary’s Victor Orbán and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who claim that democracy’s principle that all people are equal—including sexual minorities—proves that democracy is incompatible with traditional religious values. Promising to take away LGBTQ Americans’ rights offered a way to consolidate a following to undermine democracy.

DeSantis sought to shore up his position by mandating a whitewashed version of a mythic past. At his request, in March the Florida legislature approved a law banning public schools or private businesses from teaching people to feel guilty for historical events in which members of their race behaved poorly, the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (Stop WOKE) Act.

In July the Florida legislature passed a law mandating that the books in Florida’s public school cannot be pornographic and must be suited to “student needs”; a state media specialist would be responsible for approving classroom materials. An older law makes distributing obscene or pornographic materials to minors a felony that could lead to up to 5 years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Unsure what books are acceptable and worried about penalties, school officials in at least two counties, Manatee and Duval, directed teachers to remove books from their classrooms or cover them until they can be reviewed.

In January, DeSantis set out to remake the New College of Florida, a public institution known for its progressive values and inclusion of LGBTQ students, into an activist Christian school. He replaced six of the college’s thirteen trustees with far-right allies and forced out the college president in favor of a political ally, giving him a salary of $699,000, more than double what his predecessor made.

On February 28, right-wing activist Christopher Rufo, the man behind the furor over Critical Race Theory and one of DeSantis’s appointees to the New School board, tweeted: “We will be shutting down low-performing, ideologically-captured academic departments and hiring new faculty. The student body will be recomposed over time: some current students will self-select out, others will graduate; we’ll recruit new students who are mission-aligned.”

Then, this Tuesday, the board voted to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the school. DeSantis has promised to defund all DEI programs at public colleges and universities in Florida.  

The attempt to take over schools and reject the equality that lies at the foundation of liberal democracy is now moving toward the more general tenets of authoritarianism. This week, one Republican state senator proposed a bill that would require bloggers who write about DeSantis, his Cabinet officers, or members of the Florida legislature, to register with the state; another proposed outlawing the Democratic Party.

DeSantis and those like him are trying to falsify our history. They claim that the Founders established a nation based on traditional hierarchies, one in which traditional Christian rules were paramount. They insist that their increasingly draconian laws to privilege people like themselves are simply reestablishing our past values.

But that’s just wrong. Our Founders quite deliberately rejected traditional values and instead established a nation on the principle of equality. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” they wrote, “that all men are created equal.” And when faced with the attempt of lawmakers in another era to reject that principle and make some men better than others, Abraham Lincoln called it out for what it was. “I should like to know,” he said, “if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop?”

To accept DeSantis’s version of our history would be a perversion of our past and our principles.

But it is not unimaginable.

The troops did not leave the South in 1877.

[Heather Cox Richardson:: Letters from an American March 2, 2023]

[ebookporn]

Pennsylvania District Ordered to Produce Library Records, Pay Legal Fees for Dad Challenging Book Removals | The Philadelphia Inquirer

A Common Pleas Court judge sided with father Darren Laustsen in his battle for records of library books checked out by staff members at Pennridge School District in Perkasie, PA, finding the district manipulated reports in a "coverup.

READ MORE

[gatekeeper-watchman]

Twitch is a waste of time, but some of you are on the Twitch Platform for entertainment. Streaming because you play games, so might as well stream to have fun anyways. The bad side of Twitch is obviously bad. But it's all of our choice to pick who we watch, who we make have those thousands of viewers. There are so many positive communities. Twitch definitely isn't the best. It is one of the worst. There are Pros and cons to everything. Twitch definitely has been on a decline as it keeps getting popular/mainstream level with hoodlums and unlawful mentalities who carry abstract political ideologies, xenophobia, hate, and violence. At the end of the day, if you don't enjoy certain things just leave it alone. You can easily just move on and let others do what they desire spending their time doing but remember that if you play with dirt, you may never stay clean. Parents and their citizenship training which includes good behavior involves enforcing and reinforcing what is taught and requires discipline, diligence, and commitment from parents. When parents abdicate the position of a mentor, their children derive their values from the world; from humanistic teachers in public schools, from babysitters, secular movies, videos, CDs, games, books, magazines, social platforms, false doctrines, false prophets, religion, and last but not least, their peers.

Saturday, August 5, 2023

From: Steven P. Miller @ParkermillerQ, Founder of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups Saturday, August 5, 2023, Jacksonville, Florida., Duval County, USA. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Sparkermiller.JAX.FL.USA, https://www.facebook.com/StevenParkerMillerQ Instagram: steven_parker_miller_1956, Twitter: @GatekeeperWatchman1, @ParkermillerQ, https://twitter.com/StevenPMiller6 Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gatekeeperwatchman, https://www.tumblr.com/gatekeeper-watchman, https://www.pinterest.com/GatekeeperWatchman1/ #GWIG, #GWIN, #GWINGO, #Ephraim1, #IAM, #Sparkermiller, #Eldermiller1981

[news247planet]

#Clemente #Roberto #MLB Roberto Clemente e book faraway from Florida public faculties pending overview over discrimination references https://news247planet.com/?p=178521

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A Florida teacher has been fired after a video he filmed of empty school library shelves went viral amid outrage over Gov. Ron DeSantis’ alleged efforts to ban books.

Brian Covey, a parent and substitute teacher at Mandarin Middle School, filmed the video in a bid to show the consequences of Florida’s new “curriculum transparency law”. It has since racked up more than 13 million views.

Mr. Covey’s firing came days after Mr. DeSantis directly condemned the video as a “fake narrative” as he denied that books have been removed from school shelves, despite evidence from teachers and librarians revealing that they have.

On Tuesday, the Governor was asked by a reporter in Duval County about the district ordering schools to remove all books from shelves so that they can undergo a “vetting” process to ensure they comply with the law, which was passed in Florida last year.

“Actually that video, that was a fake narrative,” the Governor said in reference to Mr. Covey’s video.

“This is trying to create some narrative, as if that... They hadn’t even put the books out yet to begin with. So, there’s no need for all of that stuff. What they’re trying to do is they are trying to act like somehow, you know, we don’t want books,” the Governor said at a press conference.

Duval County Public Schools addressed Mr. Covey’s termination in a statement to First Coast News on Wednesday. It confirmed that ESS, the organisation which contracts with the district to hire substitute teachers, had “parted ways” with Mr. Covey.

“In discussion between the district and ESS regarding this individual’s misrepresentation of the books available to students in the school’s library and the disruption this misrepresentation has caused, it was determined that he had violated social media and cell phone policies of his employer. Therefore, ESS determined these policy violations made it necessary to part ways with this individual,” the statement read.

The Independent has previously reported that school teachers and librarians in Duval County, where Mr. DeSantis was visiting to speak about judicial reform, had been ordered by the school district to remove non-curriculum books from their shelves.

Many of them took to social media to share images of empty bookshelves.

The vetting was ordered by the district in response to a “curriculum transparency” law passed by Mr. DeSantis last year. That law requires schools to ensure their book selections are “free of pornography and prohibited materials harmful to minors, suited to student needs, and appropriate for the grade level and age group.”

The law has sown confusion in some schools, and the task of interpreting the guidelines has been left to “media specialists,” or librarians.

Seeking to ensure compliance with the new rules, Duval County School District sent a memo to teachers last month instructing them to “temporarily store books until they are reviewed.” The memo also notified teachers that “plays and poems” performed in class “will also need to be aligned to state statute language.”

The aim of the law, according to Mr. DeSantis’s office, is “to ensure that parents have knowledge of what is being offered to their children in the classroom.” School districts are now rushing to meet those guidelines.

But teachers and free expression advocacy groups, like PEN America, have said the “vague laws, harsh penalties and confusing directives” have left schools operating under a “cloud of fear” that is harming students’ ability to learn.

One librarian told The Independent that the library in the school where she worked had been closed to students while the vetting took place.

“The books are sitting out on tables, they’re being boxed up and discarded,” Keri Clark said. “It’s just it’s a really sad sight. A lot of the kids keep looking through the window and it’s just it’s awful that I can’t let them come in and get books.”

Mr. DeSantis said at his press conference on Tuesday that the law is aimed at stopping pornography from reaching children, but among the titles that have been removed and banned in the course of the vetting in Duval County are Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, The Stranger by Albert Camus, Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl, and a skateboarding magazine called Thrasher.

The reasons for these bans, noted in a document viewed by The Independent, are brief and vague. They include descriptions like “racial profile” [sic], "Lewd/Offensive” and “Inapp. Behavior.”

At the press conference on Tuesday, Mr. DeSantis said it was not the state’s intention to ban books.

“If there’s anything that any of these school superintendents say are 'banned,' produce that and our Department of Education will absolutely take a look at that, and I can guarantee you that unless it something that 99% of the people realise its wrong, chances are it’s not any type of issue,” he said.

The Florida Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent.

Bryan Griffin, press secretary for Mr. DeSantis, said in a statement on Tuesday that the removal of books from school shelves was not ordered by the state.

“There has been no state instruction to empty libraries or cover up classroom books. However, we ARE taking a stand against pornography and sexual material in the classroom,” he said in the statement.

In a separate response to a request for comment from The Independent, he added that “the intent is not to empty libraries but ensure pornography is not provided in classrooms.”

Last month, teacher Andrea Phillips told The Independent she had removed all the books from the shelves in her classroom in response to Duval County’s vetting process.

“The autonomy that has been stolen from me. I’m a certified teacher, I’ve been doing this for more than a decade. I’ve done training after training. I’ve worked with kids for years. I know what I’m doing,” she said.

[myquesttoteach]

Superintendent D. Greene Duval County Public Schools @the_ones_jax @duvalschools (at Jacksonville, Florida) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpYd0KNLHJA/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[cherdenjohns]

UPDATE: DCPS retracts info on curriculum review committee, citing 'premature email'

The Duval County Public Schools committee, tasked with reviewing and reconsidering teaching materials, instructional media and library books, ...

[newswireml]

Teacher Who Perpetrated 'Empty Shelves' Hoax to Attack DeSantis Gets His Just Deserts – RedState#Teacher #Perpetrated #Empty #Shelves #Hoax #Attack #DeSantis #Deserts #RedState

A viral hoax showing a supposedly cleaned-out library as a result of a new Florida law banning explicit material in schools has resulted in a teacher being fired. Brian Covey, who was a substitute teacher for Duval County Public Schools (Jacksonville area), was told his services would no longer be needed after he posted a video making it seem as if the Mandarin Middle School library had been…

[qudachuk]

Teachers and librarians have shared images of empty bookshelves following a directive from Duval County Public Schools

[theyoungturks]

Ron DeSantis is actually catching some heat for banning books in Florida. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live Read more HERE: https://www.thedailybeast.com/ron-desantis-now-vindictive-teachers-are-shelving-books-to-make-me-look-bad?ref=home "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is attempting to shift the blame after backlash stemming from a school district’s removal of baseball star Roberto Clemente’s children’s book. Clemente’s book references racism he dealt with as a Black Puerto Rican baseball player, and has been removed from the district’s libraries for months pending review, in compliance with the state’s newly passed “Stop WOKE Act,” according to Duval County Public Schools. The governor, who’s made removing “critical race theory” from education a key component of his platform, is now accusing the school district of trying to get publicity from their “outlandish” stunt in removing the book, claiming it has nothing to do with new laws." *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt Unbossed with Nina Turner https://www.youtube.com/unbossedtyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 230216__TB02Books by The Young Turks