Some friends and I spent the better part of a year investigating the contents of our local public school libraries and were shocked at what we found (detailed on The Blue Shark Show, a local government watchdog podcast).
Since last year, we discovered novels about high school coaches drugging and raping their student-athletes, satanic cartoon porn, and jihadi sympathizer material, among other things.
Unfortunately, the district still doesn’t have a handle on this issue.
Pirate Pride was drilled into us when I attended Granbury Independent School District. Knowing our county is mainly Republican, many assumed our public education system was beyond reproach. However, the last few years have shown the glaring need for improvement.
We’ve been overly generous in allowing our district time to fix the issues.
Nine months later, local politicians have doubled and tripled down on the subject, now limiting public access to their online card catalog system while at the same time talking about how transparent they are as a couple of trustees run for re-election.
A healthy organization should welcome an honest evaluation to see how it can serve the community better. So, why is there so much resistance in Granbury ISD?
Until recently, anyone could access the online card catalog system through the district’s website. That changed sometime in the last 48 hours.
Last year, the district also restricted access to questionable BrainPop lessons that were found to include leftist ideology. (For example, likening Black Lives Matter riots to Martin Luther King Jr.’s marches.)
Saying this was intentional is a pretty safe bet at this point.
It pains me to say this, but leadership on the school board is unwilling to face these problems head-on. Their actions are unacceptable, and Granbury needs to find three committed conservatives to run for school board and win.
When this controversy arose, Superintendent Jeremy Glenn took ownership of the issue. He vowed to solve the problem and put measures in place to keep it from happening again. That sounded great at the time, but the district has since backpedaled.
Why the change in direction? Is it because we have three trustees up for re-election this November, and they’re afraid three solid conservatives will run and win? They seem afraid of the ACLU and possible lawsuits, but they should fear the taxpayers’ wrath.
A strong leader on the school board would throw these explicit books and magazines in the trash, where they belong. What if we had three rock-ribbed Republicans run this November? Would you support them? What if they were ready to solve this simple issue on Day 1? Would you donate to their campaign?
Again, it pains me to write this. I don’t enjoy going public against the district. It’s a sensitive issue in my community, but it feels like I don’t have a choice anymore.
It’s either stand up and fix these problems, or keep burying our heads in the sand and wish them away.
We must collectively address these problems in our school districts. Our future depends on it.
