Sparks fly in legislative hearing on school indoctrination
An explosive hearing by the General Assembly’s House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform sought to put concerns over school indoctrination and noncompliance under the microscope. However, the actual fallout from the hearing remains to be determined.
Republicans, led by House Majority Leader Brenden Jones, R-Columbus, grilled Chapel Hill‒Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Rodney Trice and Board of Education Chair George Griffin after video and email evidence suggested CHCCS officials were attempting to circumvent the recently passed SB49, the “Parents Bill of Rights.”
“Let me be real clear: This General Assembly will use every tool, every statute, and every ounce of our authority to protect children and to force you to comply with the law,” Jones said in his final remarks, before gaveling out of the nearly two-hour hearing.
“If you don’t follow it willingly, we will hold you to the fire with every legal and legislative mechanism in our power,” Jones added. “If you’ve made your choice, we’ve made ours.”
Jones opened the hearing by highlighting some of the controversial children’s books that reportedly had been on the CHCCS recommended reading list for elementary school kids.
He read a passage out of one of the books: “Some boys have a penis, but not all boys do. So always use your manners. May I ask what I can call you?”
“This is damn trash,” Jones said, throwing the book over his shoulder. “Pure trash you’re putting to these children.”
Rep. Jeffrey McNeely, R-Iredell, grilled the two school officials over what appeared to be their selective enforcement of the law after Griffin was caught openly discussing ways to disregard two sections that he deemed “discriminatory” to transgender students.
“So, you thought the law you would be getting was multiple choice,” McNeely said. “You can kind of choose what you liked and what you didn’t?”
Griffin maintained that CHCCS was compliant with all parts of SB49, which was passed by the Republican-led General Assembly in its last session, overriding a veto from then-Gov. Roy Cooper.
However, GOP committee members came armed with a video recording that showed Griffin at a board meeting recommending noncompliance.
Although Griffin argued that his vote at the board meeting was ultimately overruled, Jones also confronted him with an email he had sent several weeks later that advocated for putting the district’s priorities ahead of state law.
McNeely suggested that cuts to state funding may be necessary in the cash-strapped school district, which Trice said currently had only $300,000 in its general-fund balance as enrollment has seen a 10% drop in recent years.
“Because of y’all, there’s gonna be legislation that comes, and it’s gonna be pretty tough,” McNeely said. “Because we’re not gonna put up with rogue school systems who have no money and will not comply with the laws of this state.”
Several Democrats on the committee dismissed the hearing as little more than political theater.
“We’re entering the political season, and so it looks like we’re going to get a lot more political activity,” Rep. Eric Ager, D-Buncombe, told the Carolina Journal after the hearing.
“And that’s, you know, to be expected to some degree,” Ager added. “But we still have a lot of real work that we haven’t accomplished — including passing a budget. And, to me, we ought to be focused on that, and we can leave the political theater for later.”
Rep. Allison Dahle, D-Wake, who is gay, told the school officials that they were right to put LGBT students’ needs ahead of parental concerns and state law.
“I have to say, we have a history of civil disobedience in the United States,” Dahle said during her allotted time.
“And I do feel like you’re following the law. And if you skirt it just a little bit, I’m kind of proud,” she added. “And everybody can say I’m a horrible politician for saying that, but this is an attack on gay, trans people.”
Dahle told the Carolina Journal afterward that she would not support a situation in which Republican school officials ignored Democratic-initiated laws by promoting literature about President Donald Trump.
“That’s a hard question to answer because Trump shouldn’t be in the schools, and politics really shouldn’t be in the schools,” she said.
However, she made a distinction between overtly political messaging and the promotion of a left-wing social agenda.
“I don’t think that people identifying male, female, gay, trans — any of those things — is political,” Dahle said. “I think we’ve made it political, but it’s not political. I don’t talk to people and tell them they can’t believe in God in the school. If they wish to have prayer in the morning, they can. They shouldn’t be forced to.”
But Jones said in his closing statement that the school system’s promotion of an extremist agenda was anything but benign.
“Let’s be clear, these aren’t policies, and they do not protect the children,” he said. “… Let me tell you exactly what it is: extreme indoctrination that targets children, grooms them, and drives a wedge between them and their family.”
Jones told the Carolina Journal following the hearing that he took no joy in dragging the school officials in front of the oversight committee, but that the next steps would rest on whether they amended their actions in response.
“Well, I’m not happy,” Jones said. “They came in with a plethora of lies and they stayed with their lies. So, I’m hoping this meeting opened their eyes, that they will go home, comply with the law. That’s all we want them to do is comply with the law.”
Ager, though, said he left the meeting convinced that CHCCS officials were in compliance.
“I don’t think they’re happy about it, but I think they are in compliance with the law,” he told the Carolina Journal.
“Sparks fly in legislative hearing on school indoctrination” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.
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