While many students across the country have been back to in-person learning for awhile now, some educators don’t seem to want to get back in the classroom including a California high school teacher who was recorded on zoom berating students over the fact that the parents are pushing to end remote learning and want their kids back in the classroom full time.
San Marcos High School teacher Alissa Piro can be heard in a Facebook video getting worked up and raising her voice when addressing the situation with students during a zoom class.
Newly released video of a @SanMarcosUSD HS teacher going off on students and their parents over distance learning and other issues. Originally posted to FB. Apparently this is a common occurrence. pic.twitter.com/pjEN80kLNh
— Reopen California Schools (@ReopenCASchools) April 12, 2021
Piro, who teaches English, appears to be referencing an ongoing lawsuit launched by a coalition of parents against Gov. Gavin Newsom and six North Country school districts seeking eased COVID restrictions and an accelerated return to physical classrooms, though local unions say doing so would constitute judicial overreach.
“If your parent wants to talk to me about their profession and their opinion on their profession, I would love to hear that…,” she says.
“However, if your parent wants to come talk to me about how I’m not doing a good enough job in distance learning based on what you need as an individual? Just dare them to come at me. Because I am so sick to my stomach of parents trying to tell educators how to do their job.”
The video was reportedly filmed by a family member of a student in attendance, and was shared to a private Facebook group aimed at reopening schools in the district. After over a year of remote learning, the district recently agreed to a hybrid model which allows students to attend in-person learning two days a week. The local union reportedly voted to keep the hybrid model for the duration of the school year, outraging parents and students anxious to return to in-person instruction.
On mother wrote in the private Facebook group about the teacher saying “She’s a bully.” “These rants were so often my child said he “tuned her out” and was just trying to get thru the class…this is exactly what’s wrong with education and if the school district sweeps this then they are just as responsible.”
CDC Says Teachers Do Not Need To Be Vaccinated To Reopen Schools
Teachers do not need to be vaccinated in order for schools to reopen according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In cites such as Chicago and Los Angeles, teachers unions are resisting the effort to put teachers back in the classrooms without proper precautions in place, including vaccinations.
According to a Wednesday report from CNBC, newly appointed CDC Director Rochelle Walensky says that teachers do not need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before schools can reopen.
In statements during a COVID-19 White House press briefing, Walensky said, “There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated. Vaccinations of teachers is not a prerequisite of reopening schools.”
She also explained that a CDC advisory committee has placed teachers in the “1B” category — the same as essential workers — to receive vaccines, placing them second in line for priority to receive the injections.
The CDC has stated that there is “little evidence” of widespread coronavirus transmission in schools and many schools across the country have been open for in person teaching for a while with little to no issues.
Full story at the Blaze.
UPDATE: CA Approves Curriculum Which Recommends Students Sing Chants to Aztec God of Human Sacrifice
California’s Board of Education unanimously voted to approve a new ethnic studies curriculum for the state which writer Christopher Rufo describes as a program that advocates for the “decolonization” of American society and “elevates Aztec religious symbolism.”
The program will be offered statewide and many of the largest school districts will make it a requirement for graduation.
As CharlieKirk.com previously reported:
The curriculum instructs teachers to help students “challenge racist, bigoted, discriminatory, imperialist/colonial beliefs.” This will help the educators inspire students to take part in “social movements that struggle for social justice” and “build new possibilities for a post-racist, post-systemic racism society.”
The education program often cites the book, Rethinking Ethnic Studies by R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, the original cochair of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.
According to Rufo, Cuauhtin argues in his book that the U.S. was founded on “Eurocentric, white supremacist (racist, anti-Black, anti-Indigenous), capitalist (classist), patriarchal (sexist and misogynistic), heteropatriarchal (homophobic), and anthropocentric paradigm brought from Europe.”
The program also has a disturbing “ethnic studies community chant,” which appeals to Aztec gods, including the god of human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Rufo explains:
The curriculum recommends that teachers lead their students in a series of indigenous songs, chants, and affirmations, including the “In Lak Ech Affirmation,” which appeals directly to the Aztec gods. Students first clap and chant to the god Tezkatlipoka—whom the Aztecs traditionally worshipped with human sacrifice and cannibalism—asking him for the power to be “warriors” for “social justice.” Next, the students chant to the gods Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe Totek, seeking “healing epistemologies” and “a revolutionary spirit.” Huitzilopochtli, in particular, is the Aztec deity of war and inspired hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices during Aztec rule. Finally, the chant comes to a climax with a request for “liberation, transformation, [and] decolonization,” after which students shout “Panche beh! Panche beh!” in pursuit of ultimate “critical consciousness.”
A Department of Education press release claims the curriculum is “aimed at empowering students by illuminating the often-untold struggles and contributions of Native Americans, African Americans, Latino/a/x Americans, and Asian Americans in California.”
Board President, Linda Darling-Hammond said of the passage of the new curriculum, “We made an important step toward confronting and ultimately transforming racism in our society and in our state. This day has been a long time in coming, and we are reminded daily that the racial injustice it reveals is not only a legacy of the past but a clear and present danger.”
Civil rights activist Karen Korematsu, who advocated on behalf of the program said, “The ethnic studies model curriculum is a starting point. It’s not an endpoint. This is a pivotal moment in California’s educational history. The fight for justice and human rights begins with education, and begins now.”
