Waukee School Board president Lori Lyon announced at Monday night’s meeting public comment time would be cut to 30 minutes. That kept one individual from speaking, but his remarks as prepared for delivery were shared with The Iowa Standard.
“As a Waukee Graduate, our family moved back into the district because of the positive impact this community has had in my life and the hope it would have a similar impact on the life of our children. I still have strong relationships with several of my former teachers and classmates who remain in the area.
What I have come to realize, in a fairly short period of time is that it is not the same Waukee that I know…it has actually moved backwards. Not in small part to decisions that have come out of this very room. Now people might say, you’re naive-the district has grown and the world is a different. Both are true…and void of any self-reflection or depth of thought.
I would argue that a number of the problems I’ve heard discussed are attributed to the unintended consequences of what I choose to believe are people’s best intentions and prioritizing polarizing societal discussions within the walls of our schools.
Within those walls students and teachers are not activists….and cultural changes do not come through coercion, force and board mandates.
If the board really cared about change, they would have looked inward to identify a path forward that would work for OUR community vs. implementing an overly broad standard that looks nothing like progress for many.
But why would people have issues with these things?
- Personally as someone who comes from a multi-racial family that includes police officers – I don’t want to hear that a teacher tells students that cops hate black men like it has been reportedly shared by a staff member at Waukee with students.
- I recently met a father new to the district who found out his kid’s first-grade teacher is posting on social media…how she is ‘raising these kids’, asking them how they used their ‘white privilege today’ and what they have done to be anti-racist. Just two examples of many that are flooding out of our community.
- There are books available at Waukee schools called Gender Queer and Lawn Boy –
- Gender Queer contains graphic illustrations of pedophilia, a child performing oral sex on an older man and masturbation.
- Lawn Boy contains graphic descriptions of sex between men and children
- IF YOU CARED ABOUT THE DIVISION IN THE COMMUNITY. You would have removed them yesterday.
- During the candidate forum on Thursday, Ms. Lyon complained about the divisiveness in our district. Ms. Lyon then praised the new equity standards that were passed and according to recent reports is now advising parents to sue the district over board decisions. This is not leadership and shows a lack of self-awareness. Frankly, the community should demand an investigation of the latter…because if true, which she would be calling one of her voters a liar if it’s not, Ms. Lyon violated the Code of Ethics, created a conflict of interest given her role as President while neglecting the fiduciary responsibility she has to taxpayers.
We live in the greatest country the world has ever known – while never perfect it has always strived to be better. We need to go back to reinforcing in our kids that their greatest dreams can be achieved through hard work, integrity, perseverance and loving one another. However, let’s not be ignorant, we cannot protect them from everything…the world can be ugly to all of us, life is not fair, our kids will fail, they will be hurt, and the journey will be hard. We need to teach them to embrace that and overcome…that allows them to learn, to be better and gives the opportunity to grow.”
