Education

Pennsylvania Teachers Union Trained Educators To Combat ‘Attacks’ From Parental Rights Group

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Reagan Reese Contributor
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A Pennsylvania teachers union held a spring conference that offered educators advice on how to fight back against “attacks” from a parental rights group’, according to a conference outline.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association Southern Region hosted an April 14 conference that offered members of the teachers union training courses, including “Combatting Moms for Liberty Attacks on our Teachers and our Schools,” according to a conference outline. The course, led by Lauri Lebo, a spokeswoman for the union and American Civil Liberties Union Pennsylvania Secretary, explored the “dark money origins” of Moms for Liberty, a coalition of parents working towards transparency in education. (RELATED: ‘A Positive Point Of The Night’: Grassroots Education Orgs Pick Up Key School Board Wins In Battleground States)

“Moms for Liberty jumped onto the political scene in 2021 at the height of the pandemic,” the course description read. “Seemingly overnight, an army of parents and community members started showing up at board meetings with a coordinated message, aggressively protesting the teaching of the misnomer ‘critical race theory’ and the wearing of Covid masks. M4L [Moms for Liberty] chapters are now targeting school board races across the country and here in the Southern Region. This session will explore the dark-money origins of this astroturf organization and its real long-term goal, as well as provide strategies on how to defeat them in the ballot box and at the board meeting.”

Teachers also took a course on “supporting LGBTQIA+ students and educators” which taught attendees how to provide a “safer environment” for the community within the classroom, the conference outline stated. The course taught educators LGBTQ vocabulary and how to “confront implicit bias, micro-aggressions and stereotypes.”

Another course taught educators about strike and bargaining tactics when “negotiations are not progressing as planned,” the conference stated. The training course “teachers unions and social justice” explained how internal and external systems can be used to fight injustice.

Jennifer Pippin, president of the Indian River County chapter of Moms for freedom, attends Jacqueline Rosario's campaign event in Vero Beach, Florida on October 16, 2022. - Rosario's candidacy for re-election to a school board is supported by the controversial group "Moms for Liberty", which claims to defend the "rights of parents" but is accused by its critics of opposing LGBT rights. Long dormant and apolitical institutions, these councils, whose members are elected, have become real powder kegs with the politicization of subjects such as the discussion of gender or sexuality in schools, or the teaching of racism. Education has been at the heart of some mid-term elections. (Photo by Giorgio VIERA / AFP) (Photo by GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images)

Jennifer Pippin, president of the Indian River County chapter of Moms for freedom, attends Jacqueline Rosario’s campaign event in Vero Beach, Florida on October 16, 2022.  (Photo by GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images)

“Social Justice Unionizing seeks to expand how we think about issue identification, power building, bargaining, partnerships and the wins we achieve,” the course description read.

Teachers unions throughout the nation are implementing gender identity and Critical Race Theory (CRT) initiatives through their members and in the classroom; the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, hosted a “Race-Based Trauma Blended Learning Course” to train educators how to recognize the causes and effects racial trauma. The New York City teachers union hosted a workshop to teach counselors about how to resist the “harmful effects of whiteness.”

The Pennsylvania State Education Association did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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