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A newly-elected far-right school board in Colorado is enraging many residents and teachers.
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Nearly 40% of the district’s high school teachers have said they’re leaving next year, according to NBC News.
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The conservative board has adopted policies like a right-wing teaching standard and argued against mental health resources.
A Colorado school district’s board was taken over by far-right conservatives aiming to emulate Trump — and their new policies have driven off nearly half the district’s high school teachers, according to NBC News.
A group of conservatives won control of Woodland Park, Colorado’s school district at the end of 2021.
Since then, they’ve enacted a number of far-right policies that have infuriated many teachers, residents, and even staunch Republicans in the small town of just 8,000 people, according to a new report from NBC News.
Nearly 40% of the district’s high school teachers have decided to leave at the end of this school year, a district administrator told NBC News.
And at least 4 higher-ups in the district have quit over the new board’s policies, according to interviews and emails viewed by NBC News.
“This is the flood the zone tactic, and the idea is if you advance on many fronts at the same time, then the enemy cannot fortify, defend, effectively counter-attack at any one front,” David Illingworth, a new member of the school board members, wrote to another member shortly after being elected, according to NBC News.
“Divide, scatter, conquer,” he wrote. “Trump was great at this in his first 100 days.”
Among its most controversial new policies was the board’s decision to adopt the American Birthright social studies standard. The curriculum standard, created by a right-wing advocacy group, emphasizes patriotism, discourages civic engagement, and criticizes the federal government’s control of public schools, NBC News reported.
The board also pushed against mental health resources for students, with the superintendent musing how a school social worker didn’t help stop a student’s murder off-campus, according to the NBC News report.
Read the original article on Insider
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