A National School Boards Association (NSBA) letter suggesting protesting parents may be guilty of “domestic terrorism” launched an FBI investigation, an apology by the NSBA and the implosion of the school boards’ group.
In an Oct. 5 email obtained by
Parents Defending Education, an NSBA official wrote that Chip Slaven, NSBA’s interim CEO “told the officers he was writing a letter to provide information to the White House, from a request by Secretary Cardona.”
The Department of Education denied that Secretary Miguel Cardona requested the letter in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon.
Laura Meckler writes about the unraveling of NSBA in the Washington Post.
Nineteen mostly GOP-led states have withdrawn from the association or promised to when this year’s membership expires, and six members of what was a 19-person board have left. Several states are discussing forming an alternative association for school boards.
“If the school board association’s goal was to tamp down conservative parent protests, it had the exact opposite effect, galvanizing a movement that coalesced last fall around the idea of parental rights,” writes Meckler.
Slaven, who’s since been fired, told Meckler that “he was already planning to send the letter when White House officials asked for examples” of threats. He added numerous incidents, not all of them violent.