Community Message Concerning Access to the Carver Educational Services Center on Thursday, July 20

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:LGBTQ books belong in the family life curriculum. Period.

So "Lilly's Big Day" (Lilly participates in the wedding of a man and a woman) belongs in the ELA curriculum, but "Uncle Bobby's Wedding" (Chloe participates in the wedding of a man and a man) belongs in the Family Life curriculum ("Period")? Why?

I don’t have a problem with books about adults getting married. It’s the ones that portray kids and gender or romance (gay or not). There are books about changing genders and about a crush someone has on another kid who happens to be the same sex. Those don’t belong in ELA.

Romeo and Juliet MUST BE BANNED!!!!

Jokes on you. MCPS no longer requires kids to read Shakespeare anyway. You pretty much have to choose and sign up for Shakespeare classes if you want that exposure.

As of when? This past year (2022-2023)? Because my kid read Shakespeare the year before that (2021-2022).

Reading lists for 9th and 10th. No Shakespeare.

English 9 Core Texts:

The Comedy of Errors
William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare

p. 32 in https://docs.google.com/document/d/129Wo-64urXNgSbw4gbDHqtu8GNOYkqu3xJD3O4uNurY/edit

That's the specific course on William Shakespeare (English 9B.3). Those books are not read in most of the English classes in MCPS. Nice try though.

English 9B.3 is the third unit in the second semester of regular on level English in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LGBTQ books belong in the family life curriculum. Period.

So "Lilly's Big Day" (Lilly participates in the wedding of a man and a woman) belongs in the ELA curriculum, but "Uncle Bobby's Wedding" (Chloe participates in the wedding of a man and a man) belongs in the Family Life curriculum ("Period")? Why?

I don’t have a problem with books about adults getting married. It’s the ones that portray kids and gender or romance (gay or not). There are books about changing genders and about a crush someone has on another kid who happens to be the same sex. Those don’t belong in ELA.

Romeo and Juliet MUST BE BANNED!!!!

Jokes on you. MCPS no longer requires kids to read Shakespeare anyway. You pretty much have to choose and sign up for Shakespeare classes if you want that exposure.

As of when? This past year (2022-2023)? Because my kid read Shakespeare the year before that (2021-2022).

Reading lists for 9th and 10th. No Shakespeare.

English 9 Core Texts:

The Comedy of Errors
William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare

p. 32 in https://docs.google.com/document/d/129Wo-64urXNgSbw4gbDHqtu8GNOYkqu3xJD3O4uNurY/edit

That's the specific course on William Shakespeare (English 9B.3). Those books are not read in most of the English classes in MCPS. Nice try though.

English 9B.3 is the third unit in the second semester of regular on level English in MCPS.

+1. And the Honors English classes follow the same guidelines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LGBTQ books belong in the family life curriculum. Period.

So "Lilly's Big Day" (Lilly participates in the wedding of a man and a woman) belongs in the ELA curriculum, but "Uncle Bobby's Wedding" (Chloe participates in the wedding of a man and a man) belongs in the Family Life curriculum ("Period")? Why?

I don’t have a problem with books about adults getting married. It’s the ones that portray kids and gender or romance (gay or not). There are books about changing genders and about a crush someone has on another kid who happens to be the same sex. Those don’t belong in ELA.

Romeo and Juliet MUST BE BANNED!!!!

Jokes on you. MCPS no longer requires kids to read Shakespeare anyway. You pretty much have to choose and sign up for Shakespeare classes if you want that exposure.

As of when? This past year (2022-2023)? Because my kid read Shakespeare the year before that (2021-2022).

My 10th grader hasn't ready Shakespeare in either 9th or 10th grade.

When I was in MCPS, we read Romeo + Juliet in 9th and in 10th grade I think it was Merchant of Venice?

Anyway, our DCC high school is majority black and brown so I think they justified doing away with requiring Shakespeare because it's not "culturally relevant" to our school population. So some of this might vary by school within MCPS.

I'm the PP you're responding to, whose kid had Shakespeare in high school, and my kid's non-DCC MCPS high school is also majority Black and Hispanic.

I do think there's an argument to be made (including by John McWhorter, of all people) that Shakespeare is not linguistically relevant anymore. You need an awful lot of footnotes to be able to understand Shakespeare properly. Or Shmoop.

While I think my MCPS graduates studied Shakespeare, I always wished they could have had an English class like my 12th grade English. Starting with Beowulf, we covered the development of British literature (including Shakespeare), along with the historical context of each period.

I had a similar Honors English class in 11th grade and am very happy to let my kids go without it. Beowulf was the bane of my existence. They can cover various Brit Lit stories in a different style class. Anyone wanting to know how British literature developed can take that class as an elective thus saving the rest of us from it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LGBTQ books belong in the family life curriculum. Period.

So "Lilly's Big Day" (Lilly participates in the wedding of a man and a woman) belongs in the ELA curriculum, but "Uncle Bobby's Wedding" (Chloe participates in the wedding of a man and a man) belongs in the Family Life curriculum ("Period")? Why?

I don’t have a problem with books about adults getting married. It’s the ones that portray kids and gender or romance (gay or not). There are books about changing genders and about a crush someone has on another kid who happens to be the same sex. Those don’t belong in ELA.

Romeo and Juliet MUST BE BANNED!!!!

Jokes on you. MCPS no longer requires kids to read Shakespeare anyway. You pretty much have to choose and sign up for Shakespeare classes if you want that exposure.

As of when? This past year (2022-2023)? Because my kid read Shakespeare the year before that (2021-2022).

My 10th grader hasn't ready Shakespeare in either 9th or 10th grade.

When I was in MCPS, we read Romeo + Juliet in 9th and in 10th grade I think it was Merchant of Venice?

Anyway, our DCC high school is majority black and brown so I think they justified doing away with requiring Shakespeare because it's not "culturally relevant" to our school population. So some of this might vary by school within MCPS.

I'm the PP you're responding to, whose kid had Shakespeare in high school, and my kid's non-DCC MCPS high school is also majority Black and Hispanic.

I do think there's an argument to be made (including by John McWhorter, of all people) that Shakespeare is not linguistically relevant anymore. You need an awful lot of footnotes to be able to understand Shakespeare properly. Or Shmoop.

While I think my MCPS graduates studied Shakespeare, I always wished they could have had an English class like my 12th grade English. Starting with Beowulf, we covered the development of British literature (including Shakespeare), along with the historical context of each period.

I had a similar Honors English class in 11th grade and am very happy to let my kids go without it. Beowulf was the bane of my existence. They can cover various Brit Lit stories in a different style class. Anyone wanting to know how British literature developed can take that class as an elective thus saving the rest of us from it.

You must have delved a lot deeper than we did into Beowulf. While I wasn’t terribly impressed with the actual story (it seemed like a B grade monster tale), I remember it as a fairly light (if grim and gory) read. I wonder if our different perspectives are due to different translations, or perhaps differences in the teachers leading the classes.

Apparently, that type of class, for whatever reason, may not be a good match for everyone. I’m not sure about the logistics of it as an elective, because I think there would be significant overlap with a standard English course. I wonder if either AP or IB follows a historic survey approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LGBTQ books belong in the family life curriculum. Period.

So "Lilly's Big Day" (Lilly participates in the wedding of a man and a woman) belongs in the ELA curriculum, but "Uncle Bobby's Wedding" (Chloe participates in the wedding of a man and a man) belongs in the Family Life curriculum ("Period")? Why?

I don’t have a problem with books about adults getting married. It’s the ones that portray kids and gender or romance (gay or not). There are books about changing genders and about a crush someone has on another kid who happens to be the same sex. Those don’t belong in ELA.

Romeo and Juliet MUST BE BANNED!!!!

Jokes on you. MCPS no longer requires kids to read Shakespeare anyway. You pretty much have to choose and sign up for Shakespeare classes if you want that exposure.

As of when? This past year (2022-2023)? Because my kid read Shakespeare the year before that (2021-2022).

My 10th grader hasn't ready Shakespeare in either 9th or 10th grade.

When I was in MCPS, we read Romeo + Juliet in 9th and in 10th grade I think it was Merchant of Venice?

Anyway, our DCC high school is majority black and brown so I think they justified doing away with requiring Shakespeare because it's not "culturally relevant" to our school population. So some of this might vary by school within MCPS.

I'm the PP you're responding to, whose kid had Shakespeare in high school, and my kid's non-DCC MCPS high school is also majority Black and Hispanic.

I do think there's an argument to be made (including by John McWhorter, of all people) that Shakespeare is not linguistically relevant anymore. You need an awful lot of footnotes to be able to understand Shakespeare properly. Or Shmoop.

While I think my MCPS graduates studied Shakespeare, I always wished they could have had an English class like my 12th grade English. Starting with Beowulf, we covered the development of British literature (including Shakespeare), along with the historical context of each period.

I had a similar Honors English class in 11th grade and am very happy to let my kids go without it. Beowulf was the bane of my existence. They can cover various Brit Lit stories in a different style class. Anyone wanting to know how British literature developed can take that class as an elective thus saving the rest of us from it.

You must have delved a lot deeper than we did into Beowulf. While I wasn’t terribly impressed with the actual story (it seemed like a B grade monster tale), I remember it as a fairly light (if grim and gory) read. I wonder if our different perspectives are due to different translations, or perhaps differences in the teachers leading the classes.

Apparently, that type of class, for whatever reason, may not be a good match for everyone. I’m not sure about the logistics of it as an elective, because I think there would be significant overlap with a standard English course. I wonder if either AP or IB follows a historic survey approach.

Neither AP Lang nor AP Lit does.

[Anonymous]

My main beef with English classes in high school today is none of the are reading COMPLETE books. Everything is fragments of longer texts in the form of PDFs. There's no push to consume an entire narrative. Just excerpts. Which in my opinion, diminishes their ability to focus, contextualize and analyze things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My main beef with English classes in high school today is none of the are reading COMPLETE books. Everything is fragments of longer texts in the form of PDFs. There's no push to consume an entire narrative. Just excerpts. Which in my opinion, diminishes their ability to focus, contextualize and analyze things.

My kids have read complete books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My main beef with English classes in high school today is none of the are reading COMPLETE books. Everything is fragments of longer texts in the form of PDFs. There's no push to consume an entire narrative. Just excerpts. Which in my opinion, diminishes their ability to focus, contextualize and analyze things.

My kids have read complete books.

Mine read 1-2 books a year and otherwise its how that poster describes it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My main beef with English classes in high school today is none of the are reading COMPLETE books. Everything is fragments of longer texts in the form of PDFs. There's no push to consume an entire narrative. Just excerpts. Which in my opinion, diminishes their ability to focus, contextualize and analyze things.

My kids have read complete books.

Mine read 1-2 books a year and otherwise its how that poster describes it.

I believe mine are reading one book per quarter.

[Anonymous]

As a lesbian teacher at mcps this whole situation disgusts me. Am I not allowed to talk about my wife to my (elementary age) students? We are legally married w kids and straight married teachers talk about their spouses all of the time. I of course do talk about my wife and family (limited but appropriately). I also had a student transition in my class last year. Would opt out parents like to opt their kids out of my classroom? They can’t bc that’s discrimination. Wanting me to come up w an alternate lesson plan and finding another teacher to babysit the kids is crazy! Plus kids are constantly sharing about their (LGBTQ parents siblings etc). Unless we move to “no say gay” there is no opting out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a lesbian teacher at mcps this whole situation disgusts me. Am I not allowed to talk about my wife to my (elementary age) students? We are legally married w kids and straight married teachers talk about their spouses all of the time. I of course do talk about my wife and family (limited but appropriately). I also had a student transition in my class last year. Would opt out parents like to opt their kids out of my classroom? They can’t bc that’s discrimination. Wanting me to come up w an alternate lesson plan and finding another teacher to babysit the kids is crazy! Plus kids are constantly sharing about their (LGBTQ parents siblings etc). Unless we move to “no say gay” there is no opting out.

I want to say that I would have loved for you to teach my children. Please know that there are many, many parents out here who want our kids to be raised with the understanding that families look different and there’s no one right kind of family and love is love and everyone is worthy of respect. I believe that kids who are raised to see the humanity in everyone and treat everyone with respect are kinder and happier. And who knows, if they grow up to be gay themselves maybe they will recall that wonderful teacher who had a family just like the one they hope to have, and so being different than the norm will perhaps feel less risky or frightening to them.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:A new piece from Em Espey in MoCo360, this morning:

https://moco360.media/2023/07/20/volume-of-lgbtq-opt-out-requests-caused-significant-disruptions-mcps-says-in-legal-filing/

Clearly there are quite a few people who agree with the protestors. MCPS and the BOE might want to at least hear them out.

MCPS and the BoE has heard them out. They have had a lot of opportunity to have their say, and they are continuing to have that opportunity. You need to distinguish between "having your say" and "getting your way."

If the same material about gender identity is taught in the Family Life unit, people can opt out. But when it's taught in the English Language Arts unit, people cannot. This does not make any sense.

I predict this case will go to the Supreme Court and MCPS will lose there. It will take a few years, after MCPS spends millions of dollars defending it.

The MCPS response filed in the lawsuit will help clear up your confusion. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L0BKX9u-EuvS8B2pkvB0zY58eqUsDSfg/view

The teacher is not just going to read with the class a book about "a prince falling in love with a knight" (one of the books MCPS uses to teach English Language Arts). The teacher will have a discussion about gender identity with elementary school students about that story after reading the book. That discussion will cover the same material used in the Family Life and Human Sexuality curriculum that a family can opt out. But now in the ELA part, people cannot opt out. That's a clear inconsistency.

Why would the teacher have any discussion about gender in this case. When they read Cinderella or another other story the discussion is not around gender. The discussion is on characters, plot, comparing/contrast with another story, specific themes.

These books are actually part of a curriculum that includes a teacher guide that leads students in a discussion about gender (or whatever topic the book is about). I'm not sure if the teacher guide will be used in MCPS at this time, or just the books.

[Anonymous]

MCPS is hiding its hand and playing games: https://moco360.media/2023/07/31/how-many-mcps-families-want-to-remove-their-students-from-lgbtq-class-discussions/

Cram has consistently declined to comment substantively on the number of accommodations granted to families regarding the inclusive storybooks or the reasons why the option of such an accommodation was removed, citing the pending litigation. When reached for comment, plaintiffs’ attorney Charles McFadden said his firm’s legal filings speak for themselves.

Montgomery County Muslim Council’s outreach director Hisham Garti filed a sworn declaration on Thursday in response to Hazel’s statement, describing a May 1 meeting between himself, Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) representative Zainab Chaudry and several MCPS officials.

According to Garti’s contemporaneous notes, he said Chief Academic Officer Peggy Pugh told him the decision to rescind the opt-out was made “after a few parents of the LGBTQ+ community complained [their children] were offended and had their feelings hurt when students started leaving classrooms during instructions of these texts.” Cram did not respond to requests for comment on the meeting or Pugh’s alleged statement.

“What stayed with me is that based on the complaints of a few families, they rescinded the whole opt out,” Garti told MoCo360. “At no point in that meeting did they even mention the notion that too many kids were opting out and that it was causing disruption in the schools.”

This court case will be very interesting to watch.

[Anonymous]

LGBT group is the most intolerant group I have seen.