The new Rockingham County School Board didn’t waste any time establishing its Talibanic mores, beginning its first meeting of 2024 with a nondenominational Christian prayer, because “we need God’s help, the days that we’re living in,” the new board chair, Matt Cross, said.
The board then voted to, ahem, “temporarily remove” a list of 57 books from school libraries, and you won’t be surprised to learn that most of the about-to-be-banned books deal with LGBTQ+ and African-American authors and experiences.
The five-member board has three new members who were elected in November – Ashley Burgoyne, Sara Horst and Hollie Cave, all independents who identified themselves as Republicans during their campaigns.
OK, so, to be clear on this, it’s not as if their elections shifted the board from progressive to MAGA conservative; this is Rockingham County we’re talking about here.
It’s more, the board was center-far right before, and all the way there, and just to the left of Genghis Khan, now.
Cross, a former school resource officer, dismissed the opening prayer as being at all controversial, noting that the school board is just following the lead of “our local elected officials such as the Rockingham County Board of Supervisors.”
“I believe the majority of our community would agree with me,” Cross said.
The people who wrote the Constitution went to great pains to make sure that the will of the majority wouldn’t trample on the rights of the minority, but, sure.
The list of books that the board voted to “temporarily remove” was the idea of Cave, a former substitute teacher in the county school system who doesn’t like talking to the local press.
“I have never in my life read such things,” Cave said at the school board meeting, no doubt not happy that she was exposing herself there to being quoted by some lefty with working knowledge of the SEO game.
“We want to talk a lot about mental health and taking care of our kids. I think we need to start with what we’re putting in their heads,” Cave said.
Cross conceded that the move by the school board regarding the books would not be “popular.”
“But we do sit as a safeguard for our children in our community, and our community elected us to do what was right in our schools, for our children and for our parents,” Cross said.
In line with that thinking, the board voted to adopt Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s 2023 Model Policies to Ensure Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students and Parents in Virginia’s Public Schools.
These policies include a mandate to school staff they refer to students by the name and pronouns respective to the name and sex listed in their official record, and requires parental approval or documentation to change the official record.
The anti-trans policy also mandates separate bathroom and sports participation by sex rather than gender.
One other move from the first meeting of the year that deserves mention: the board signaled its intent to ban school board meeting attendees from displaying signs.
That one’s not adopted yet, but that’s just a formality.
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Chris Graham
