PINOLA, MS – A principal in Mississippi allegedly ordered a third grader to remove a mask she was wearing in school.
Not because there was some type of vulgar messaging on it or it was not a suitable mask for safety during COVID, but allegedly because the words, “Jesus Loves Me” was written on it.
Instead of just complaining to the school board, the girl’s parents decided to file a lawsuit.
Lydia Booth, a third grade student who loves Jesus, tells her story. pic.twitter.com/LZphIzPU7U
— Michael Friel (@MichaelFriel) November 7, 2020
The third grade girl, Lydia Booth, was in her class at Simpson Central Elementary School on October 13th when she was allegedly approached by the principal, Antoinette Woodall, and told to remove the mask allegedly because of what was written on it.
Lydia removed the mask, as ordered, and was given a replacement mask to wear.
Woodall alleged that the move to remove the mask was done because of School Board Policy. However, Lydia’s parents, Matthew and Jennifer Booth claim that the policy was not in place at the time Woodall made Lydia remove the mask.
Lydia Booth, a 3rd grader in Simpson County, Mississippi, was ordered to remove and replace her “Jesus Loves Me” mask. Students were told they couldn’t wear anything political or is “offensive to the school environment.”. . Other kids were allowed to wear BLM masks with no issue pic.twitter.com/MlJDVinjpx
— Stonewall Jackson (@1776Stonewall) November 6, 2020
The School Board Superintendent, Gus Paes, sent out a letter that went to all students, parents and staff for the schools in the area. In it, he starts out telling everyone that the school board does not discriminate. Then, he writes:
“Masks cannot display political, religious, sexual or any inappropriate symbols, gestures or statements that may be offensive, disruptive or deemed distractive to the school environment. This expectation was outlined in our restart plan and is specific to masks only.
“The principal and Superintendent will be the final authority on the appropriateness of any mask worn to school. Wearing school colors, the school mascot or simply having a blank mask is encouraged. We appreciate your understanding and compliance with these expectations.”
While this letter is dated on October 15th, two days after Lydia was forced to remove her mask by Woodall, it certainly gives the appearance that there was no policy in place banning religious statements from face masks.
And a check of their restart plan shows no mention of any bans for anything being listed on the mask, let alone religious messages.
Lydia Booth a 3rd Grade Student at Simpson Elementary School in Pinola, MS was Robbed of her 1st Amendment when the school would not allow her to wear a JESUS LOVES ME mask. I Guess it would be OK to wear a I LOVE SATAN mask. AMERICA has TURNED ITS BACK ON GOD
PATHETIC TIMES pic.twitter.com/aFTssvhhl6— @Bamawear (@GregBates7) November 7, 2020
Jennifer alleges that the school’s handbook also has no mention of what was and was not allowed to be depicted on a face mask.
Jennifer said that the school board did not honor the words of the handbook, which also outlined the Mississippi Student Religious Freedom Act, but rather provided her with the School Board’s plan to combat COVID, which now had the ban listed.
According to the Alliance Defending Freedom group, this move, specific only to Lydia’s mask, is a violation of the First Amendment, which is why they are working with Lydia’s parents and filed a federal lawsuit on Lydia’s behalf. ADF attorney Michael Ross said:
“Public schools have a duty to respect the free expression of students that the First Amendment guarantees to them. Other students within the school district have freely worn masks with the logos of local sports teams or even the words ‘Black Lives Matter.’ This student deserves an equal opportunity to peacefully express her beliefs.”
Tyson Langhofer, who is a senior counsel for ADF, added that Woodall’s and the school’s actions caused the 9-year-old to be upset. He said:
“She’s told her parents she wants to be a missionary and that’s why she wants to wear this mask. It made her really sad when she was forced to remove this mask because the message means something to her and it’s her choice to wear it.”
Langhofer alleges that Woodall and the School Board are “discriminating against individuals who want to wear masks expressing religious beliefs but are allowing students and faculty to wear masks expressing messages with other beliefs.”
October 19. 2020
The following article contains editorial content written by a retired police officer and current staff writer for Law Enforcement Today.
—
SAN DIEGO, CA- Instead of holding children to standards to bring them up, the school system in San Diego, California is going to lower standards in order to accommodate the lowest common denominator.
Under the excuse of “combating racism,” the San Diego Unified School District will no longer grade students based on a yearly average, or even hold students to timelines for turning in assignments. Unbelievable.
Board members in the district call the dumbing down of all students a means to combat racism. To us, insinuating that minority students are incapable of achieving at a high level, is in and of itself racism.
“This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district,” said SDUSD Vice President Richard Barrera. “If we’re actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years,” NBC-7 in San Diego said.
Data presented by the school district showed that minority students are failed by teachers at a higher percentage than white students.
For example, the district said that in last year’s first semester, 30% of all D or F grades were given to English learners, while one in four, or 25% went to students with disabilities.
By ethnicity, 23% of D or F grades went to Native Americans, 23% to Hispanic students, while 20% went to black students.
Conversely, only 7% of failing marks went to white students.
It is unknown if the district investigated family dynamics, such as a nuclear family consisting of a mother and father in determining which students were having a difficult time in school.
The district plans on fixing that “racial imbalance” by changing how students are graded. So, instead of working to help minority students achieve, the district is going to lower standards to “level the playing field.” Sounds pretty racist to us.
Of course, such a practice does a tremendous disservice to the kids, because once they are out in the real world, working jobs, completing tasks on time is usually a requirement of most jobs. Teaching students at a young age that timelines really don’t mean anything seems to be sending the wrong message.
According to the district, grades will be focused on mastery of material as opposed to a yearly average. Board members complained that such a requirement “penalizes” students who get off to a slow start, or who may struggle at various points during the year.
Likewise, teachers can no longer consider actually doing assignments on time as a factor in issuing grades. The same goes for classroom behavior.
So, a student can act up in class, interrupting the good students and refusing to complete tasks on time, and they have the opportunity for the same grade as the diligent students. This is apparently what you call rewarding good behavior in San Diego.
The above factors will no count toward a student’s “citizenship grade,” not their academic grade. Extra points for citizenship probably if they participate in a riot or destruction of property…double points if they get in the face of a police officer probably.
Citizenship grade? What is that, points for just showing up for class? “We’ll start you off with a C and just work up from there.” Kind of like participation trophies in youth sports, right?
Barrera said, “I think this reflects a reality that students have described to us and it’s a change that’s a long time in coming.”
So, in other words, kids complained about being punished for not doing their assignments on time, so the district says, “That’s a great idea! Those kids that do their work on time shouldn’t be rewarded for doing so. We’ll dumb down the whole system!”
A student member of the school board, Zachary Patterson, a junior at University City High School noted that some classmates had expressed reservations about the new system, which inflates grades, however he said most of his peers’ feedback was positive.
“I know students all across the school district are really happy with the idea that these accountability measures are no longer going to be defining their understanding of knowledge,” Patterson said.
He had expressed concern during last week’s school board meeting about alleged disparities which come from a zero-tolerance disciplinary policy on cheating coming up in the next few weeks.
We’ll have to keep an eye on that one. Seriously why should students be punished if they cheat off one of their classmates’ papers? Fair is fair right? Wouldn’t want cheating to be considered racist, would we?
One teacher, who does not teach in the district expressed some concerns about the proposals.
“These disparities are extremely disconcerting. A focus on mastery can be an excellent move, provided it is done right. But I have my concerns. Mastery based approaches are standard based. I’m a fan of standard-based education, but you can game this easily, if you want.”
Read Mr. Fulton’s entire thread. He makes some excellent points.
An editorial in Red State raised a great question.
“If the San Diego Unified School District’s manipulation of its grading system does result in “grade inflation” as “some students” in the district fear, how will that grade manipulation prepare students whose grades will have been inflated throughout their SCUSD career to enter college and compete against students whose grades have not been inflated for 12 years?”
Great point! The school district is doing its students a tremendous disservice by dumbing down the system. Instead of a “rising tide lifting all boats,” they are using the educational equivalent of the lowest common denominator. It makes zero sense.
Red State did have a great idea however. The New York Post recently reported that Harvard University, which used to be an educational stalwart and one of the best universities in the country, has now decided they will utilize three different SAT admission standards—based on race. Wait a minute…standards based on race? Isn’t that…racist?
“Harvard sends recruitment letters to African-American, Native American, and Hispanic high schoolers with mid-range SAT scores, around 1100 on math and verbal combined out of a possible 1600.
Asian-Americans only receive a recruitment letter if they score at least 250 points higher—1350 for women, and 1380 for men.
White students in states where Harvard attendance is sparse, such as Montana and Nevada, would receive a recruitment letter if they scored at least 1310 in the combined SAT math and verbal tests.”
Wait a minute. So Asian-Americans are punished for their typically superior academic performance? Isn’t that…racist?
John Hughes, a lawyer for Students for Fair Admissions says, “That’s race discrimination, plain and simple.”
Ah, but William Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admissions at Harvard disagrees, saying that the university targets “certain groups” in order to “break the cycle” by getting students who wouldn’t normally apply to the Ivy League school to consider doing so.
Racism defined:
- prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized”
- the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another.
As we said, it sounds like a racist policy to us.
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