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Brian Johnston's avatar

David. I understood and concur with most of what you are encouraging people to do at the meeting. I wanted to understand better what you meant by insisting the schools "focus on education"

What are the extraneous things you feel like the schools are focusing on?

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Bartow Freedom Coalition's avatar

Uh, Have you been reading this blog? It is all pretty clear.

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Brian Johnston's avatar

I have been. But there's no need to be petulant and dismissive. I asked the question honestly.

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Bartow Freedom Coalition's avatar

I think your question is designed to change the subject. I don't think you are operating in good faith.

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Brian Johnston's avatar

1) I'm not changing the subject. I asked for clarification on one of the points you mentioned.

2) I already said I agreed with most of your post. My concern was when some people say "Schools should just focus on education." they are talking about the 3 R's only. Other important parts of learning get left behind like Music, Art, Vocational, and Athletics. That is what I'm trying to qualify.

I was a band kid who was in school in Georgia in the early 80s when they implemented a scheme called Quality Basic Education (QBE) and it had a very negative impact on those other areas in a misguided attempt at "bringing back the basics".

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Bartow Freedom Coalition's avatar

The Bartow schools have embraced:

-Porn in the libraries and classrooms.

-Transgendered and L:GBT books in the libraries and classrooms.

-Social emotional learning.

-"Whisper" programs in the schools to support these things.

-A never ending effort to grow budgets to create more bureaucrat bloat.

They need to focus on academics. Band and Sports are fine (I marched Tuba and bass). But Academics first.

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Brian Johnston's avatar

OK. There's little point in dredging up old disagreements about the books. We are never going to agree on the social stuff. However, I am glad that we agree on supporting the arts, vocational and athletics in school.

I would have never taken you for a tuba player. 🤣😂

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