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For the Love of Amoria

I have covered serious issues of our day from the Taliban to terrorism, but in my 30+ years of journalism, I have never worked on a more important case of life or death.

In an important investigation at Independent Women’s Network, we have uncovered a serious tragedy in the child welfare system: on Monday night, a 10-month-old baby girl, Amoria, was removed from the loving home of her father, Sean Jackson, and grandparents, Kimberly Jackson-Makle, and Carlos Makle, in Stafford, Va.

Please read the investigation by special education advocate Debra Tisler and me. Debra captures everything that is powerful about the parent who becomes the accidental activist.

Here is our investigation: “Fathering While Black.”

Here is a GoFundMe that friends of the family have organized to raise legal funds with the blessing of the family: For the Love of Amoria.

Stay tuned to our pages for developments. This tragedy will make you weep. Have you had an experience in the child welfare system? Please tell Debra and me. Contact us at [email protected].

We are investigating the serious system failure we are experiencing today in communities around the country, in a failure of child protection laws and “Child Find” laws that require children be identified if they seem vulnerable to disabilities.

And register for a membership at Independent Women’s Network to be a part of a movement of mama bears, papa bears and grandma and grandpa bears who make a difference in our communities.

Langley HS Students Fill Out a ‘Social Identity Wheel’

Fairfax County Public Schools has another “privilege” exercise on its hands.

A teacher in a Spanish 2 class at Langley High School taught a lesson on Thursday, Oct. 13, that had students self-identify their sexuality, gender, “Body Size/ Type, “Social Class” and “(Dis)Ability.”

Read the lesson plan to see the many ways that teachers and activists are getting lessons of critical race theory in schools. Independent Women’s Network obtained the documents from concerned parents.

Read and learn what they are teaching kids!

Do you think 14 year olds should disclose on a worksheet their sexuality? Why do you think this is happening? If your child got this exercise, what would you tell your young one?

Exclusive. Fairfax County awards $56,000 contract to its former equity officer

Read the details here of a new document obtained exclusively by Independent Women’s Network, as Fairfax County Public Schools debates a controversial new policy, “Truthful Education.”

Details from the contract:

  • On Aug. 5, 2022, Fairfax County Public Schools contract with Lisa Williams, to pay her $56,000 for “strategic coaching” and “guidance” of school board members from August 2022 through June 2023, on “issues related to organizational transformation” that “enhances engagement, coaching and leadership.”
  • “Objective 1” is headlined “Transformative Coaching.” The proposal notes that Fairfax County Public Schools “will identify a team of leaders to engage in coaching with Dr. Williams.”
  • The work is divided into three sections: “Onboarding,” “Dissecting theory of action” and “Positioning for strategic action,” with “pre-work,” coaching sessions and “post-work.”
  • The contract runs from July 8, 2022, through May 31, 2024. The proposal includes language that parents shared trying to decipher its wordiness.
  • Williams will get $4,000 per month for 11 months between August 2022 and June 2023, plus $12,000 for three sessions, at $4,000 per session, and $250 per hour for work at the request of Superintendent Michelle Reid.

The controversial new resolution is viewable at this link and readable in its entirety below.

New “Truthful Education” resolution:

Truthful Education in FCPS: Support for Educators and School-Based Administrators Resolution

Whereas, Fairfax County Public Schools and the community it serves are committed to provide an academically rigorous education that promotes a responsive, caring, and inclusive culture where all feel valued, supported, and hopeful;

Whereas, essential to that inclusive classroom culture is an education that is academically rigorous, positions students to be the leaders of their own learning, reflects all voices, and respects the need and desire of our students to know the truth about historic and systemic injustice;

Whereas, FCPS educators, school-based administrators and central office staff are developing curricular resources to meet our students’ needs and the high expectations of our community around our historic truths, representative literature, critical thinking, and social justice;

Whereas, recent events have caused many FCPS educators and school-based administrators to fear that implementing these necessary curricular improvements could lead to personal or professional harm; and

Whereas, in the Teacher and Administrator Performance evaluation protocol, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) requires teachers and administrators to demonstrate a commitment to equity, and provide instruction and classroom strategies that are culturally inclusive and foster responsive learning environments and high academic achievement for all students;

Whereas, it is the role of the Board and the Superintendent to support educators in carrying out the clear and important educational expectations of the VDOE and Fairfax County community that our students are critical thinkers and effective collaborators who acknowledge and understand diverse perspectives and cultures, essential goals of the FCPS Portrait of a Graduate;

Now, therefore, be it resolved the FCPS School Board commits to protect and support educators and school-based administrators in FCPS as they develop and implement antiracist, equity- and justice- based classroom resources and pedagogy that meet the high aspirations of each and every one of our students and of the Fairfax County community.

Exclusive: Nine documents from new Fairfax County ‘Equity Dialogue’ teacher training

On Monday, October 10, Fairfax County Public Schools had staff go through 90 minutes of training for new “Teacher Evaluation Standard 6,” put in place by the Northam administration in March 2021, in the wake of a movement by “equity warriors” to “disrupt” education.

Independent Women’s Network obtained nine training documents that raise concerns among staff and parents about time and resources wasted on indoctrination while students are suffering serious learning losses.

We scoured these documents for you. Let us know any content that jumps out at you!

Leave a comment or contact me at [email protected]. Thank you!

  1. “Equity Dialogue Facilitator Guide” (Equity Dialogue Facilitator Guide.pdf)

An “Equity Dialogue Facilitator Guide” notes that the training is designed to make teaching practices “more responsive, inclusive and equitable.”

It says:

The resources provided serve as a means to get people thinking and talking about ways in which our practices can be more responsive, inclusive and equitable. Participants will gain understanding of how to align their daily practices to the evaluation standards.

“Equity Dialogue Facilitator Guide”

If teachers have questions, they are directed to their “designated Equity & Cultural Responsiveness specialist.”The training includes seven areas of “culturally responsive education” that include:

  • “Assessment and Data through an Equity Lens”
  • “Culturally Responsive Classroom Environments”
  • “Meaningful Relationships”
  • “Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Curriculum”
  • “Inclusive and Culturally Responsive Instructional Materials”
  • “Inclusive and Culturally Responsive Communication Critical Consciousness”

2. “Critical Consciousness” — “Equity Dialogue” (7 Critical Consciousness_Equity Dialogue.pdf)

A PowerPoint on “Critical Consciousness” guides teachers to support students “navigating the times we live in.” It also asks teachers: “How might you work to develop your own critical consciousness alongside that of your students?”

The “Critical Consciousness” module includes “Facilitating Student Learning: Controversial Issues” and “Culturally Responsive Teaching: Critical Lens Continuum.”

3. “Critical Consciousness ~ Text as Expert” (Critical Consciousness Quotes.pdf)

This exercise promotes quotes including one that says “our work” is to “create affirming classroom cultures,” not read, write and do arithmetic.

The quote:

“In the long run, our work is to create affirming classroom cultures that interrupt bias and prime students with positive associations about who they are and can be in the world.” (Safir, 2016)

4. “Culturally Responsive Curriculum: Critical Examination of Knowledge and Power” (Critical Lens Continuum Tool V1.pdf)

The “Culturally Responsive Curriculum: Critical Examination of Knowledge and Power” includes a continuum from “Level 0: Inculcation” to “Level 1: Activation,” “Level 2: Critical Examination” and “Level 3: Empowerment.”

“Level 3: Empowerment” argues students study how “learning and teaching are inherently ideological acts,” examining curriculum through the lens of “power, position, and bias.”

“Empowerment” includes an activist agenda with a goal to teach students how they can be involved in “taking action for more just systems.”

The curriculum notes:

“Students critically examine the ways in which human systems are the product of choices, and supports students in imagining and taking action for more just systems.”

“Culturally Responsive Curriculum: Critical Examination of Knowledge and Power”

5. “Inclusive and Culturally Responsive Instructionally Materials — Equity Dialogue” (Inclusive & Culturally Responsive Materials_Equity Dialogue.pdf)

In this document, Fairfax County Public Schools identifies that the goals is to develop instructional materials “free of bias,” but new changes to curriculum and classroom policies about “controversial issues” raise serious concerns that it’s in fact bias that activists teachers are bringing into classrooms.

6. “Facilitating Student Learning: Controversial Issues” (Facilitating Student Leadership_Equity.pdf)

 Another document, “Facilitating Student Learning: Controversial Issues,” includes “Discussion Protocols and Guides” with partisan political material, including “Teaching Tolerance” from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which includes teachings that isolate students regarding issues of “privilege” and “oppression,” and “Courageous Conversations,” a program created by a controversial consultant Glenn Singleton that discusses problems with “whiteness.”

The resources include:

  • SPLC’s “Teaching Tolerance: Civil Discourse in the Classroom: Chapters 2-4 offer guidance and structures for preparing students for civil discussions of controversial issues.”
  • Consultant Singleton’s “Courageous Conversations Protocol (PDF): A “compass” to promote reflection on different ways of engaging difficult topics, and a reflection protocol.”

7. “Grade 4 Social Studies — Planning and Practice Guide: Teacher Notes — Quarter 3: New Nation” (G3 Q3 New Nation.pdf)

Teacher notes for grade 4 social studies curriculum on a “New Nation” asks students a false binary question: “Did our founders and founding documents protect liberty or slavery?”

8. “Student Slides — Grade 4 — New Nation” (Students Slides_G4 New Nation PBA.pdf)

9. Examples in Action — Grade 4 — “New Nation” (Examples in Action.pdf)

Girls getting double mastectomies

How did we get here? A timeline.

We can all agree we want all children to be affirmed and supported.

But where we disagree is whether it’s appropriate or not for a girl to get a double mastectomy or a boy to start puberty blocking hormones in the name of “gender-affirming care.”

I wondered how did we get here?

So I studied the timeline on public conversation from “transvestites” of the early 1900s to today’s “gender-affirming care” for children.

I created a chronology of events for this movement that is today akin to woke sex-ed on steroids — or as some dare to call it grooming and child abuse, with publishing houses, hospitals and activists introducing children as young as infants — before they can even say “mama” — to sexual and gender concepts like “intersex,” “non-binary” and “trans.” It’s a hypersexualizing of children that we are seeing.

Go to the link here to read the timeline: https://asrainvestigates.substack.com/p/girls-getting-double-mastectomies

Please direct message me on Twitter @AsraNomani or email me at [email protected] with any touchstones I missed in the timeline. Let’s understand how we got here to get out of this mess and focus on our No. 1 priority: affirming children, in all of their innocence.

When they are adults, they can make more educated decisions. But as children, let us simply love them and keep them off operating tables.

Asra Q. Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, author and senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Network.

Amid disturbing news on math, reading scores, I argue: ‘School is for merit’

I was honored -- albeit surprised -- to be invited to publish an op-ed in a special New York Times Opinion package, “What is School For?”, publis...

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