Hunter
02/07/23
A social media post by a Linn Mar Schools board member had some parents calling for her resignation at Monday’ board meeting.
KCRG TV reports the post from Rachel Wall last month said, “The purpose of a public ed is not to teach kids what parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community.”
The post was greeted with hundreds of comments. She clarified the post hours later, saying that it didn’t say parents and students don’t matter or shouldn’t be involved in the process. Wall goes on to say, “The only agenda of public education is to educate everyone, for the benefit of everyone. It prepares us for the world. It creates critical thinkers, thoughtful and questioning children and adults, the very kind of people who act upon the world in ways that make us all better.”
Monday night’s board meeting was the first since Wall’s post, and public comment both supported and criticized her. The station’s report on the meeting said public comment referenced everything from the Bible to Vladimir Lenin. One parent called Wall’s posts “fundamentally Marxist.”
The board has come under fire before. In 2022 they instituted a policy that allows a gender-support plan for transgender students despite objections, saying the policy follows federal and state law.
Conservatives are pushing for parental approval of school textbooks and selections in school libraries. Governor Kim Reynolds last week said she believes if a book is removed from one school district’s library, it should be removed by all districts in the state.