The Missouri School Boards Association board of directors announced Monday it was withdrawing from the National School Boards Association ...
The Missouri School Boards Association board of directors announced Monday it was withdrawing from the National School Boards Association due to the NSBA’s letter likening parents to “domestic terrorists,” among other reasons.
“This decision was not made lightly,” MSBA executive director Melissa Randol wrote in a letter to its members.
“The National School Boards Association, through its recent actions, such as its letter to the White House, has demonstrated it does not currently align with MSBA’s guiding principles of local governance.”
“We also believe that no school board member or educator should ever have to endure threats of violence or acts of intimidation against themselves or their families for making these difficult decisions,” Randol added.
“However, attempting to address that issue with federal intervention should not be the first step in most cases, and is antithetical to our longstanding tradition of local control. Further, the use of inflammatory terms in the NSBA letter is not a model for promoting greater civility and respect for the democratic process.”
In a Sept. 29 letter to President Joe Biden, NSBA president Viola Garcia and interim executive director Chip Slaven wrote, “America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat. The National School Boards Association (NSBA) respectfully asks for federal law enforcement and other assistance to deal with the growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation occurring across the nation.”
The two cited COVID policies and “propaganda purporting the false inclusion of critical race theory within classroom instruction and curricula” as stirring angry confrontations and protests at school board meetings.
“As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” Garcia and Slaven argued.
“As such, NSBA requests a joint expedited review by the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Homeland Security, along with the appropriate training, coordination, investigations, and enforcement mechanisms from the FBI,” they added.
Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum less than a week later saying, “Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values. Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.
“The Department takes these incidents seriously and is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate,” Garland added.
The AG directed the FBI to convene meetings nationwide to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response.”
On Friday, the NSBA board of directors issued a memorandum apologizing for its Sept. 29 letter, saying, “there was no justification for some of the language included in the letter.”
“We should have had a better process in place to allow consultation on a communication of this significance,” the memo added.
On Tuesday, the Ohio School Boards Association joined its Missouri counterpart in terminating its membership with the NSBA, also citing the Sept. 29 letter to Biden.
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