It seems that yelling at people who you should be helping isn’t working.
Yesterday, I wrote about how The Associated Press fought bravelyTo interfere for the National School Board Association. This was to verify the assertion that the National outfit sought to label parents who object to district meeting policies as terrorists. PolitiFact is the place to sign upShe also tried to pick out the smallest details, and projected the falsehood of her claims.
There is one problem. Read the letter sent by the NSBA They claim where it is. They claimed they want violence at meetings not to be classed as domestic terrorists. However, they sent President Biden an email containing a variety of examples. Most involved basic protests that had been seen at previous meetings.
In the week that followed, the NSBA only received negative feedback and not sympathy. It was forced to rescue itself by the press. It is seeing a rise in resistance from within its network. It was a common occurrence to observe various SBAs from state come forward to discredit their state and group from the inflamatory statement made by the National Group.
On Wednesday last week, Virginia School Board Association reported the first signs of internal conflict. Respondent issued a total disavowal of the NSBA letter’s release.
NSBA is a national organization that consists only of each state’s school board association. The Virginia School Boards Association (VSBA), is currently a member in good standing of NSBA. However, the association was not consulted on the matter, provided no information, or was informed that the letter was being sent.
Recent days have seen more SBAs from states come forward. Pennsylvania’s state SBA responded to Virginia’s request for comment. “The Pennsylvania School Boards Association was not consulted prior to the letter being sent by the National School Boards Association to President Biden,” said Annette Stevenson, chief communications officer. “We were not asked for input nor discussion on its content.”
The most striking example of how the national chamber went rogue is when other states made comments. The Florida school boards are in an ongoing dispute with Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. It is no surprise that the state organisation has made a comment. Florida School Boards Association sent its own letter of concern.
Your letter contains elements that are contrary to the FSBA’s tenets. This communication has created serious concern, conflict and confusion for many of the FSBA members. It has not only distracted members from their important work, but it has also strained the vital local and state collaboration relationships that members have worked so hard to maintain over many years.
The Florida SBA letter also indicates some of the motivation likely behind the national group’s bold statement. The FSBA states that it has not made its recent payments to the NSBA for a number of reasons, some of which are listed in their letter.
We have been clear about reassessing the value of our affiliation with NSBA due to concerns surrounding NSBA’s governance, leadership, transparency, and failure to embrace non-partisanship. Given the large number of states that are members, which have voiced similar concerns to us, but have not received the promised changes or a timeline for these improvements, we will keep our dues in place until further notice.
Christina Pushaw (DeSantis Press Secretary) commented on the decision in RedState’s statement:
The FSBA affirmed that dissent isn’t domestic terrorism. Protests can be peaceful. A citizen’s criticism of their elected officials is not harassment. The federal government should not intervene in the local affairs or criminalize freedom speech.
This is a great example of how a political struggle between a governor and a state school board can result in the need to highlight the problems associated with national organization partisanship. It may expose the national association in a significant way if more members states make similar statements.
The NSBA was clearly motivated by a partisan leadership and felt empowered to contact President Biden to have him use a variety of federal acts to defend the group and to quell the parental protests to the recent actions. It is encouraging for parents to know that this result has led not only to poor public relations but also to the compulsion of several state boards to oppose this effort.
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