Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 513 | Parents: It's Time to Double Down | Guest: Lysa Kosins

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

Starting point is 00:00:19 We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. All right.

Starting point is 00:00:55 Today I am going to interview the second half of this episode. Lisa Cousins, she is a mom of two small business owner from Centerville, O. Ohio, who is running with two other conservative candidates for the school board. Centerville has actually made national news because the school board meetings there have raised respectful ruckus, as we like to say. Parents have been raising a respectful ruckus there. And so in PR, other outlets have been talking about this. And the people at the center of this are these school board candidates, one of whom we are going to speak to today.

Starting point is 00:01:35 we're going to ask her, why are you running? What are some of the issues that are going on? She's going to give us some inspiration, some encouragement, some clarity that kind of cuts through the narrative that you are hearing from these national outlets who really want to demonize concerned parents. And I'm going to spend the first part of this podcast talking about that. You've probably seen, and we have talked about on this show, these school board meetings that are so contentious can be very heated because these concerned parents, whether it's about sex ed, whether it's about some of the sexually explicit and in some cases LGBTQ material that is accessible to elementary school students, middle school students in their

Starting point is 00:02:26 library, some of the material that teachers are actively recommending, whether it's racially divisive, a historical content. that is being taught in classrooms or whether it's these unscientific, in a lot of cases, unfair and discriminatory mask mandates. What I mean by discriminatory and unfair is that in some places, like in Centerville, Ohio, kids who need medical exemptions are not even being granted those exemptions. And so parents are understandably angry. We've seen a lot of the rot, a lot of the dark underbelly of teachers unions, teachers associations, school districts, the public school bureaucracy, and even some of these elite private schools in places like Manhattan that are just corrupt to the

Starting point is 00:03:17 core, that are not serving our children and their parents well. Now, we are also seeing a national conversation about this by Democrats and in the press, Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia. Terry McCulliffe said in a debate, a couple weeks ago against his competitor, Yonkin. He said, I don't think parents should be telling schools what to teach. And he has really tried to walk that back because he just, he just said it. He said the quiet part out loud. He said what most Democrats and a lot of people in the public school bureaucracy. I'm not talking about every single administrator. I'm not talking about every single teacher. But the bureaucrats that are leading the public education system,

Starting point is 00:04:05 they truly see parents as an impediment to what they want to do rather than an asset. Barack Obama, when he was campaigning for Terry McCullough in Virginia said that these are just phony culture wars. They're just trying to stoke anger that, you know, the concerns that people are expressing on the Republican side, they don't represent. any real issues. We've got more important things to take care of. So that's him trying to brush this statement that was controversial really across the aisle by Terry McCall if he's trying to brush it under the rug. The National Association of School Boards, or actually I think it's the National School Board Association, wrote a letter to the Biden administration a couple weeks ago

Starting point is 00:04:50 asking for help combating so-called violence against school board members and suggested that these concerned parents should be called and considered domestic terrorists. Now, they got so much backlash from the right, so much pushback from parents. I'm sure that included parents who vote Democrat too, saying, what are you talking about? We have legitimate concerns about our kids' education and their well-being, and you are calling us domestic terrorists. So the National School Board Association has actually walked that back. They published a letter apologizing and saying that they regret the letter. Now, that is rare because the National School Board Association has a lot of institutional power behind them, including Biden's Department of Justice led by Merritt Garland. Now,

Starting point is 00:05:39 Merritt Garland and his DOJ has not backed down after they published a letter promising to mobilize the FBI against parents at school board meetings. Now, one of the examples that was used by the NSBA in their original letter calling parents domestic terrorists was a dad in Loudoun County, Virginia named Scott Smith. He called a board member, school board member, a B word, at a meeting on June 22nd. He was arrested, dragged away. His angry face with his shirt pulled up became like the poster that the press used to prove that these concerned parents are actually. just angry white people, racist, mad about diversity and masks and vaccines and whatever they could throw on him. They did. But let's ask a question. And thankfully, Luke Roziak of the Daily Wire

Starting point is 00:06:41 has answered this question for us. The reason that he expressed the sentiment that he did at that school board meeting back in June was because he says his daughter was raped in a school bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt who calls himself gender fluid. And the kid was simply just, he was transferred to another school rather than the issue actually being addressed head on. So that assaults, that alleged assault happened in May. And then this is according to Fox News. Quote, the boy after the May assault was subsequently charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy and one count of forcible fallatio. We're talking about a ninth grade girl. we're talking about a ninth grade girl being allegedly assaulted by a dude wearing a skirt.

Starting point is 00:07:30 And after that charge, he was apparently given an ankle monitor and allowed to simply transfer schools. And what happened when this, quote, gender fluid boy transferred? This is also, according to Fox News, quote, on October 6th, the sheriff's office said a 15-year-old boy was charged with sexual battery and abduction of a fellow student at Broad Run high school, that's the high school that he transferred to, in Ashburn. In an October 7th press release, the sheriff's office said the suspect forced a female victim into an empty classroom where he held her against her will and inappropriately touched her. The outlet citing a government official reported that the boy accused in the broad run case had the same name as the student who allegedly assaulted Smith's daughter. So let's back up a little bit.

Starting point is 00:08:18 So the superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools, Scott Ziegler, sent out an email. after the allegation surfaced because the dad complained telling the school board about the accusation. And he also says that the dad who complained, Scott Smith came up to the school and when he complained he was apparently disruptive, according to this email, and that anyone who witnessed this dad's disruption could access counseling services provided by the school. So he says, quote, the school's counseling team is providing services to students who witness the parents' behavior. but he doesn't offer those counseling services to the alleged victim of assault. So that's one problem, but it gets worse. So then, and this is where things get really bad, on June 22nd, there was a

Starting point is 00:09:03 school board meeting. Scott Smith shows up. He accuses the school board of ignoring the assault. According to Fox News, quote, at a school board meeting on June 22nd, Ziegler declared that, quote, the predator, transgender student, or person simply does not exist and that to his knowledge, we don't have any record of assaults occurring in our restroom. So we know he lied because the email in May has been published where he acknowledges that there was an allegation that this happened. And then in June, he says, oh, no, we don't have any record of any assault happening. So the girl was accused of lying about it. And the dad, very understandably, in my opinion, freaked out. He didn't actually use any physical violence,

Starting point is 00:09:49 but I think he kind of used his presence and used his approach to be intimidating. And apparently he called someone a B word. He was arrested. He was dragged out of the meeting. And the National School Board Association used this dad, Scott Smith, as an example that these parents are domestic terrorists in their letter to the Biden administration, which then prompted the Department of Justice to say, okay, we're going to mobilize the FBI against these concerned parents.

Starting point is 00:10:19 This was the dad that apparently was the impetus for this. And you know why he got as upset as he did. So these are the people that are being called domestic terrorists, the dads who are going to bat for their daughters, who are being assaulted in the bathroom. And the school district is doing nothing about it. Then they're lying about it. And they're trying to cover it up.

Starting point is 00:10:42 Are you kidding me? And by the way, I'm not condoning him calling someone a B word. but I mean if someone accused your daughter of lying about being raped in a bathroom after you would already complain to them a month earlier, what would you do in that situation? And for him to get arrested, that's not illegal, by the way. That's not illegal. Also, according to Fox News, quote, on August 11th, nearly two months after Smith's arrest, the school board voted to approve its transgender rights policy, which requires teachers to call students by the pronouns they identify with and requires bathroom, renovations in order to make them more private. That is, Fox News is roundabout way of saying that it's going to allow boys to access girls' restrooms. Daily Wire reports this. A Virginia court ruled Monday, so that's October 25th, that there is enough evidence to find that a teen, the teen that we

Starting point is 00:11:38 have been talking about, accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student in a Loudoun County High School bathroom in May engaged in non-consensual sex. And so he has been charged. Now, he was also, he was charged back in the summer too. And that's when he just got the ankle monitor and was apparently allowed to transfer schools. He is being charged again. So this whole thing has just been a disaster. Can you imagine being the poor victims of this dude? Yesterday, student staged a school walkout to protest the cover up of this race. by the school board and good for them, good for them. Now, of course, this is not the only place where things like this are happening. This is not the only troubling school district. Sherry Clemens,

Starting point is 00:12:25 who I had on a few weeks ago, she is a mother of an eighth grader at Richardson Independent School District in Texas. She delivered a very emotional speech before school board members about a list of 10 recommended books given to her daughter by one of her teachers. And according to Clemens, seven of the 10 books, she went through all of them, seven of the 10 books recommended by this teacher, contain profanity, sexually explicit content. We're talking about 13, 14 year old kids. One of the books, she explains in her speech, includes a graphic depiction of child rape. One of the books also details all the different ways that a kid might be able to commit suicide. So, and that is just one of the most recent examples of parents and students.

Starting point is 00:13:12 across the country who are alarmed. They're registering their concerns with curriculum centered on radical ideas about sex, about gender, about race to their school board. There was a fourth grade student in Minnesota. She claims she was required to complete a quote equity survey that asked her prefer gender identity. Students were allegedly instructed not to tell their parents about that. Also, 17-year-old students in Ohio at Hudson High School were reportedly prompted by their teacher to write a, quote, sex scene. They wouldn't show their mom, which obviously provoked outreach from parents, but also the city's mayor actually went to the school board meeting and was like, what the heck? So according to Barack Obama, these are just phony culture wars. These are just phony culture wars.

Starting point is 00:14:01 And according to Democrat candidate for governor, Terry McCullough, parents don't have the right. Parents don't have the right to say anything about what's going on in schools and what's being taught to their kids in schools. Now, I want you to think about what would have happened if this dad, Scott Smith, had not complaint. Clearly, he was the only adult in this scenario who cared about this victim. And yet, the Washington Post agrees with Barack Obama, agrees with Terry McCallif, agrees with these school board members who don't believe the parents should get a say in any of this. And we're going to talk about what the Washington Post says in just one second. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in, conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed.

Starting point is 00:15:09 You can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. All right. So let me read you a little bit of what the Washington Post, what the Washington Post is saying. So here's the title of this article. Parents claim they have a right to shape their kids' education or shape their kids' school curriculum. They don't.

Starting point is 00:15:34 Let's read that again. parents claim they have the right to shape their kids curriculum they don't okay that's what the washington post says quote in their search for issues that will deliver congress in 2022 conservatives have begun to circle around the cause of quote parents rights so that's the narrative that the only reason parents are concerned is because republicans want to gain power it's not actually valid. They also put parents' rights in scare quotes as if parents' rights aren't real. Do you know how frightening that is? Do you know how like Camar Rouge that is, how scary that is? They go on to say, what's actually radical here is the assertion of parental powers that have never

Starting point is 00:16:20 previously existed. So get it? If you care about what your child is learning in school, you're the radical. That's not too far from what the National School Board Association said about parents being domestic terrorists who raise their concerns at the school board meetings. The article goes on to say, when do the interests of parents and children diverge? Generally, it occurs when a parent's desire to inculcate a particular worldview, denies the child exposure to other ideas and values that an independent young person might wish to embrace or at least entertain. To turn over all decisions to parents, then would risk inhibiting the ability of young people

Starting point is 00:16:57 to think independently. I have so many problems with this. First of all, nothing is neutral. So this is what progressives want you to believe. They want you to believe that it's the religious right that are the only ones who do the indoctrinating. They're the only ones who have a bias that secularism, that progressivism is just neutrally good.

Starting point is 00:17:17 What? It's just about civil rights. It's just about compassion and empathy and inclusion and tolerance. It's just about science. It's just about the facts. It's just about history. They present critical race theory as it's just history. they present talking about gender identity to five-year-olds as just inclusion and tolerance.

Starting point is 00:17:37 They pretend that talking about abortion to elementary and middle schoolers is just talking about science. They want you to believe that their ideology, that their pseudo-religion is neutral. It's not. Nothing is neutral. As we say so often on this podcast, neutrality is a myth. And so public schools are not teaching your child to think neutrally and independently and looking at all different point of view. You know, that would be fine. That's what you expect from a public school.

Starting point is 00:18:07 It's not a religious school. So, of course, they're going to teach about atheism. Of course they're going to teach about, you know, a variety of things that you as a Christian parent might not teach. But they're actually in a lot of cases. I would say in most cases at this point not doing that. They are talking about one kind of progressive ideology, one view of history, one view of so-called science, one view of morality, one view of creation, or what they would, you know, called Big Bang or whatever. And they're not actually presenting all kinds of possibilities of belief systems and then equipping

Starting point is 00:18:40 kids with the tools to think critically. They're actually teaching kids a whole lot of pseudo-religious dogma, phrases that don't mean anything, like my body, my choice, or about intersectionality, the oppressed versus the oppressor breaking down. along racial and class lines. Like that is not teaching kids to think independently and critically. That is indoctrinating them with your particular worldview. And so what these people are actually saying, what Democrats actually think is that teachers and the public school bureaucracy

Starting point is 00:19:10 actually have more of a right to indoctrinate kids with their worldview than you do as a parent. So kids are always going to be indoctrinated. Education for the most part. And in some ways is indoctrination. Yes, you are teaching kids how to think, but you also have to teach them what to think. You teach them that two plus two makes four,

Starting point is 00:19:30 and you teach them how to get there. But at the same time, like, you are supporting a specific conclusion. If you are teaching kids that the Holocaust was bad, which I believe is objectively true, I don't think there are alternative views to that. You are still telling them what to think. And so, yes, you are telling kids what to think.

Starting point is 00:19:51 You also should be equipping them with the tools to draw their own conclusions and to critically think and to ask questions. But really, when it comes to gender, when it comes to abortion, when it comes to morality, when it comes to sexuality, when it comes to all of these issues, there is only one conclusion on the progressive side that is being pushed in public schools. And so this article, it's delusional. It's delusional that public schools are teaching kids to think independently and that it's

Starting point is 00:20:18 parents that are trying to inhibit that. That is a lie. Article goes on to say, the sudden push. for parental rights then isn't a response to substantive changes in education law. It's a political tactic. So it talks about that, you know, the state has always had a role in educating the child and that these different case laws they support that. Well, no, the law hasn't changed, but the ideology and the ferocity of the lefts and the corruption in public schools has changed. I mean, I have never been a fan of the public school system at all for, for a lot. For example.

Starting point is 00:20:55 a very long time. And I would say this has been happening for a while, but it hasn't been happening forever. I do think public schools have always been set up for conformity and indoctrination and even some private schools too. That's true. But the kind of stuff, the glorification of rape and pedophilia, I am not sure, has been mainstream in public schools forever. And so again, they're trying to obfuscate here. They're trying to get away from the main point and the valid reasons why parents are concerned. They go on to say, for years the Republican Party has understood that the demographic tide is against it. Here we go. Here's the racism.

Starting point is 00:21:33 Knowing that every vote matters, the GOP has increasingly relied on a strategy of voter suppression. Simultaneously, Republicans have worked to ensure that their base turns out enforced by stoking white racial grievance. Get it, parents, if you care about your kid, learning about anal sex. when they're eight years old, it's because you're a white supremacist racist. Get that? The recent firestorm over critical race theory is a perfect case in point. Never mind that this concept from legal scholarship isn't actually taught in K through 12 schools. They love that line. Or can you tell them worked up? Or that it isn't what most protesters believe it to be. Republicans gain an electoral advantage by convincing their base that white children are being

Starting point is 00:22:19 taught to hate themselves, their families and their country. Look, I don't care what you call I don't care if you call it critical race theory. I don't care if you call it intersectionality. I don't care. I don't care what you call it. They absolutely are learning the dichotomy of oppressed versus oppressor based on whether you are white or black or brown. They absolutely are learning Howard Zinn's version of American history, which that America is exclusively oppressive and bad. Not in every school. Not in every school district. Not in every classroom. I don't think that a lot of teachers even intend to do that. But story after story comes out on a weekly basis about school districts teaching stuff that parents didn't realize that they were teaching and that parents don't

Starting point is 00:23:05 want their kids learning. And the Washington Post thinks that it's not up to you parents. Terry McColliffe believes that. I'm sure that Barack Obama believes that. It's not up to you parents to shape what your child is learning. And by the way, I guarantee you that I could define and explain critical race theory far better, far better than the people who wrote this Washington Post article. It's so tired. Like, don't you understand that they're going to call you a racist no matter what. You're going to have to get over that. You're going to have to get over that. If you want to stand for what's true, if you want to push back for the sake of your kids, you're going to be called a racist. It doesn't matter if you're black. It doesn't matter if you're brown. It doesn't matter what color you are,

Starting point is 00:23:47 what your background is, what your socioeconomic status is, how tolerant. how inclusive, how liberal, progressive you might be, if you stand against the education establishment, the democratic establishment, and the liberal worldview, then you are going to be called a bigot. So just get over it. Get over it. Don't be intimidated by it. You're just going to have to double down because it doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter how much you nuance or caveat your stance. If you push against what they're trying to teach kids in school, you're going to be called a bigot. The Nation published an article by Jennifer Berkshire, and she says, Parents' Rights has emerged as a centerpiece of the Trump-era GOP and a grieved rallying cry

Starting point is 00:24:34 against mandating vaccines, masks in schools or teaching content that parents find objectable. Again, parents' rights is in scare quotes. Let's just remember, Democrats believe this. This is what all authoritarian have believed, that you, are an impediment to their recruitment of your child. The Democratic establishment, not all Democrats, seek to indoctrinate children with their view for the purposes of political power and activism. And just remember, like, the state does not care about your child.

Starting point is 00:25:06 The state wasn't there when your child was born. The state wasn't there when you adopted your child. The state has not sacrificed for your child. The state wasn't there when your child, when they laid that child on your chest. That the state is not there when your child cries out for mom or dad in the middle of the night and you have to go comfort and rock them back to sleep. The state doesn't know what your child's birthday is, what their favorite food is, what makes them laugh, what makes them cry. They will preach grievance and gender confusion to your kid and they will never have to pay for the repercussions

Starting point is 00:25:35 of that. They don't care if your child ends up depressed. They don't care if your child ends up confused. They don't care if your 15 year old girl gets on hormone therapy and gets a double mastectomy without your consent as they can in some states. They do not care. The state does not care, you care. You are the biggest obstacle, the biggest barrier between the predatory state and your child. So now is the time to step up. Now is the time to step up. There's one mom who is stepping up. And she is running for school board. And her name is Lisa Cousins, as I said, at the top of this episode. And she is going to show us what it means to push back against some of the intimidation tactics that we are seeing from a variety of places.

Starting point is 00:26:18 Lisa, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. You are running for school board outside of Dayton, Ohio. Is that correct? That's correct. I'm in Centerville, Ohio, which is just south of Dayton. And tell us why you're running. Well, I got interested in running for school board about a year ago when the schools had to shut down because of the 2020, the COVID. And my school decided to, go not to go back. They went remote, which put my children who were younger. I had a first grader and a third grader at the time in a situation where they weren't being able to learn online. And so it got me interested in looking into the policies that were being made and why they were being made. And that prompted me to decide to run for school board because I felt like a lot of the parents who had concerns weren't being heard. And I wanted to make sure that parents like myself

Starting point is 00:27:22 had a voice on the board. And what are some of the other policies that you and other parents are taking issues with? Are there, I know that mask policies are certainly contentious. And I completely understand that. We've talked a lot about the data on our podcast. But also, there is an issue of divisive, racialized curriculum that, a lot of schools are dealing with. There's also so-called comprehensive sex education that a lot of parents are understandably taking issue with. So what are some of the things that you're seeing in your school district that you're hoping to change? So all of the above, so there are some questionable things that are being taught that maybe aren't so age appropriate that are being put

Starting point is 00:28:12 in the school system into the school libraries, particularly books that are being, read that might have questionable content. And parents aren't necessarily being notified. They're finding out after the fact. And I'd like to change things like that. I think at minimum, we need to be notifying parents. And ideally, we wouldn't be putting any content in our schools that aren't age appropriate. Right. Do you have any specific things that you're thinking about? Like, are there books that have been presented to kids that you feel like or not age appropriate? Like you said that you have elementary school kids. Was there anything specific that you have found them learning that you're like, nope, I don't think we're for that.

Starting point is 00:28:58 Yeah. So there was a book that was introduced about two years ago, and it was picked for grades four through eight. And the majority of the book has a good message. It talks about, you know, disadvantaged. children, but one of the main characters in the book is a 16-year-old girl who was pregnant. And in the book, she does not want to have the baby. It talks about her wanting to kill her child and have an abortion. And this was something that was presented to fourth graders and fifth graders.

Starting point is 00:29:31 I mean, that's like we're talking fourth grade. That's nine and ten years old. And we're talking about teen pregnancy and abortion. Absolutely. And to me, that's not age-appropriate content. for my fifth grader and not something that I want her to be introduced to through the school system and definitely not without my supervision to. And then we've also found other library books that have been in our middle schools that

Starting point is 00:30:00 have sexually explicit content with visuals that aren't appropriate for middle school children to be seeing. And why those things are in the library, I'd like to quote. as well and who's approving the materials for the library. And when you and other parents have spoken up about this in the past, because there are a couple news articles about Centerville School Board meetings becoming quite heated, what has been the reaction from the school board when you have raised these kinds of concerns? There's been no reaction at all.

Starting point is 00:30:39 So typically we go up, we speak, we say what we're concerned about. And, you know, the board starts off the meeting and they say, you have three minutes to speak. We will not address anyone as they're speaking or after they're speaking. And there's never any follow up either. So it's almost as if you're speaking to just an empty room. Right. And there's no response back from the board. And that's one of the reasons I decided to run because I feel like as a board member,

Starting point is 00:31:07 we should be responsive to the parents' concerns. At minimum, we need to respond back, whether that, be at the meeting or through email, none of that's happening. And nobody's getting any response. So we feel like we're not being heard at all. Yeah. Parents, it seems like, are being disrespected and ignored. Obviously, not in every case in every district, but it's happening enough that it's starting to make the news, even the national news. But a local news outlet, Dayton Daily News, reported opposing sides in Centerville City Schools School Board elections say they have called law enforcement to their homes in recent weeks. One incumbent seeking re-elections said Centerville police were at every

Starting point is 00:31:48 interest at a recent school or at a recent board of education meeting, helping fuel a mood which left her physically ill prior to the meeting start and led her to text her priest. Some Centerville board meetings this year have drawn to 100 people and police have requested, have been requested at four to keep the peace according to a department spokesman. So what's the reason for that? Why has there been so much hubbub at these meetings recently? I think it's a lot of media-driven hubbub. At all the meetings that I've been to, everyone has always been civil. Nobody has ever threatened the board or gone to the board in any violent way. I've never seen anything like that transpire. Definitely not anyone from my side or people that I know. We've always been very civil.

Starting point is 00:32:37 we come, we want our, you know, concerns addressed, but no one has ever gone up and threatened anyone. There has been a police presence there, but there's never any need necessarily for them to step in or anything like that. It's more just, I guess, a precaution on the side of the board members who want to kind of paint the picture that school board meetings are contentious, but not because there's actually an incident that has progressed that required that kind of action. Well, and we've seen that for the National School Board's Association, calling concerned parents, domestic terrorists. We kind of just talked about all of that and the temperature that is really being raised not as much on the conservative side as it is on the Democratic side, calling

Starting point is 00:33:26 these parents some kind of extremists or radicals who are really just, of course, there have been some examples of, you know, of people raising a ruckus in a way that is disrespectful. But for the most part, they're just parents like you saying, hey, I want some transparency here. Like, I just have some concerns about what my child has access to in the library, what they're learning without the knowledge and the consent of the parents. Like, that's a big deal. And then you've got NPR. They also are highlighting what's happening in Centerville. And this kind of goes to your point, painting a certain picture of what's happening that may or may not be accurate. NPR says school board meetings in Centerville, Ohio used to draw just a handful of people.

Starting point is 00:34:09 But that began to change last spring in the Dayton suburb when dozens showed up to a late April meeting angry about school mask requirements. And then says these are also conservative parents concerned about diversity curriculum. They always try to make it seem so innocuous. And they say that this is driven by Republicans who are hoping education could be a winning issue. So basically what it boils down to is, oh, and then it also mentions vaccine requirements. So NPR is basically trying to say that these concerned parents in this particular suburb, but really in districts across the country, are just anti-vax racists who are cynically using the issue of education to try to gain power. I mean, what's your reaction to that kind of, what I think is an unfair depiction of what's really going on.

Starting point is 00:35:01 Well, and what NPR's article was very disingen. We spent about two hours interviewing with NPR before they released that radio podcast. And they had interviews from myself, Heather Schultz, and Don McGuire, who are all running together on a ticket for school board, which they used none of. They instead decided to pull old footage from when we went to a school board meeting addressing our concerns about. masks and asking for exemptions to be held for some of the students that need exemptions and that Centerville wasn't accepting. And they spliced together my words from the school board meeting, talked over what I actually said and painted the picture and the narrative that they wanted to play out, which was that we were crazy anti-mask candidates that that was the only

Starting point is 00:35:57 platform that we had to sit on. And that's absolutely not true. I have 12 years of experience in the educational field. And that's what got me involved in running for school board in the first place. But they didn't want to use that footage. They wanted to use the footage from the meeting to paint a picture. Do you have confidence that no matter what the national or even local media wants to paint this as, that the people around you, Democrat, Republican, whatever, are kind of waking up to some of the corruption in the school board in the school system. And that because of that, that you three can be successful in your campaign come Tuesday? I think so. I think there's a lot of support in our community for what we're doing.

Starting point is 00:36:43 There's also a lot of support behind the truth and finding out what we are really about and not listening to outlets like NPR and the Dayton Daily News who want to paint one picture. I think parents are concerned that that is the picture that's being painted and that will keep some people from coming and speaking up. But I think others see this as an opportunity to support board members that will speak on their behalf. Right. Right. And what you guys want to do, what you are setting out to do, the values that you are purporting are very simple. They're very foundational. You believe it says that all of our children are created equal. You're against, obviously, racism and discrimination. We're all created equal. We teach people. We teach children to

Starting point is 00:37:30 judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin that used to be something that was just a given or even seen as progressive. Now that's seen by the people who call themselves progressives is not enough. Now they insist upon dividing people by their skin color and breathing that kind of grievance and resentment. And of course, you believe in teaching the good and the bad and the ugly of our history, but not in a way that pits one group against another. Or I'm guessing, I don't want to put words in your mouth, paints a America as exclusively bad and oppressive and wrong, right? Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:38:07 I think it's important that we learn about history and context. And, you know, it's easy to create this utopian view of what the world should be like and apply that to our past. But that's not realistic. And so we need to teach history in a realistic way. We need to be truthful about what happened. But we also need to look at our successes and see that the, we have progressed. And that's part of why America is so great because we have been able to

Starting point is 00:38:36 overcome these faults and overcome these, you know, blights on our history, you know. And I think that that is what needs to be taught because if you don't learn from history, you're destined to repeat it. And I think that that's really unfortunate that we're at a place where we want to get rid of the history that we don't like. Yeah. Yep, you're right. Well, I really applaud you for getting involved. I'm sure maybe it's not something that you foresaw, that you saw yourself doing is you're, you know, busy in a lot of other ways, raising young kids, being a mom, you're a small business owner, but it sounds like you feel like you are called to this at this time because of the challenges that you're facing. Tell us how people

Starting point is 00:39:22 can support you. Obviously, if people live in your area, they should definitely go out and vote for you. But there are a lot of people who might want to support you before Tuesday election day who don't live in Ohio so how can they do that so any anyone can go support us through our website we do have a link that they can donate and that's just cousins sholts mcquire.com and you can go donate to our campaign but really just getting the word out in our community and in other communities because this is happening across America it's not just in Centerville, Ohio. I think that this is something that parents like us want to be involved and we want to be involved in our children's schooling and what's being taught in our schools. And I think it's important

Starting point is 00:40:08 that they support those candidates and support their values and their own communities and just making sure that we keep speaking up and that we continue this movement so that we can defend our children's right to a great education. Yep. And they can be inspired by your courage. Courage is contagious and you are refusing to be daunted, to be intimidated by this huge bureaucracy that is trying to silence parents. And kudos to you. I am hopeful for you guys that you are going to win. And I will be cheering from afar and supporting you guys and hoping for the best.

Starting point is 00:40:47 So thank you so much for taking the time to come on. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, guys, it's all we've got for today. If you love Relatable, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. That would help us out a lot. As you can tell, I'm very fired up about, I'm very fired up about this subject. I was glad to have Lisa come on and kind of calm us down.

Starting point is 00:41:10 And to remind me that there are parents who are raising a respectful ruckus about all of this craziness and pushing back. And I know a lot of you are included in that group. So thank you. Thank you, moms and dads for being so courageous and for standing up for the things that matter. All right. We'll be back here tomorrow talking about Halloween.

Starting point is 00:41:31 Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular.

Starting point is 00:41:55 This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 513 | Parents: It's Time to Double Down | Guest: Lysa Kosins

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