POV: Pornography Promoted In Worcester County Public Schools

March 17, 2022 - POV by Sandra Prindle, Journalist

The Board of Education held a meeting on March 15, 2022. Prior to the meeting start time of 6PM, the stage was set. Proponents of the pornography paraded in early along with the Board of Education, which most were seated in the room by 5:20pm. Curiously, none of those brought in were familiar faces seen at prior board meetings.

The “open meeting” was anything but. The board of education allowed only 50 persons in the room, thus the reason their proponents and special interest groups (Strong Schools Maryland) arrived early.

The Sheriff who was in attendance, appeared visibly frustrated with the board of education’s decision to allow 50 people in the room that could easily fit 200+ people and was overheard speaking to Duane Abt, Steve Price, and Annette Wallace who told him that they were following “CDC guidance” on social distancing. Certainly, on the Worcester County Board of Education YouTube video of the meeting, there was no “social distancing” for those seated at the board of education table as they appear to be less than a foot apart. No mask mandates are currently used in the schools. Once again, they used political theater and obstructed the right of the people to peaceably assemble, the right to an open, unobstructed meeting under the Maryland Open Meetings Act. The BOE did not even provide reasonable and equitable accommodations as required under the ACT, as the large-screen television sat uselessly in the school's foyer.

The meeting began at 6PM and called into “open session” by President, Elena McComas. With a shaky voice telling everyone how she had “lived her life with civility and grace and sincerely hopes we can all act with civility and grace tonight” as if she already knew about the packed room of proponents of the pornography and cheerleaders of the Board of Education. In the meantime, the opponents of the board’s agenda were all stuck in the lobby waiting for a seat to open. Faculty did not alert those who patiently waited as seats became available, but instead called one-by-one those who wished to comment to keep the controlled environment within their grip.

As the prepared speeches of patting the current board on the back and condoning the pornography began, one of the speakers was Berlin Intermediate School Principal who also brought several young people along with him. All of the speeches were touting the boards leadership and not wanting the pornographic books banned.

Others stated how the board has “kept our kids safe” and are “role models.” Pushing this radical agenda of the Kirwan plan, having pornographic books in school libraries in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Superintendent Taylor and Annette Wallace have misinformed the community that Worcester doesn’t have CRT in our schools, and is keeping our kids “safe” as they serve as “good role models” for the school.

The group in red shirts who identify as “Strong Schools Worcester County” is apparently a county group for “Strong Schools Maryland.” According to their Facebook page and website, is a liberal group tied to “Funds For Educational Excellence” who runs the page, and accepts grants from globalists like Bill and Melinda Gates.

What the current school board fails to realize is that the majority of parents and taxpayers in this county and other surrounding counties, do not agree with the sexualizing/grooming of children and the use of pornographic books in their schools. The school library is just a symptom of a much greater issue.

The Worcester County Board of Education is trying so hard to make this into a political issue as referenced by Superintendent Lou Taylor’s comment in this recent article in Ocean City Today (3/3/22) that he is concerned that the push is coming from the Republican party to allow parents to filter and object to topics that don’t coincide with their own beliefs. He also stated, “we want to be in full transparency of everything we do,” which if any parent or taxpayer has ever attempted to search for information on the BOE website, knows that isn’t so. When parents and taxpayers must resort to FOIA requests to get information from the school, this is not transparency.

The intent of all the political theater on full display at the board meeting was a desperate attempt to make the Board of Education and those four seats up for re-election this year appear overwhelmingly supported by the community and that Worcester County residents fully support sexualizing children, the divisive curriculum, and destructive ideology of CRT (Social Emotional Learning) under the guise of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. This couldn’t be further from the truth. People in this county see this exactly for what it is. The current board and Superintendent Taylor have failed our students as the gatekeepers of our schools.

As a diversionary tactic, their actions were simply a hijack attempt to create a false narrative as “those who oppose pornography in the schools are out to ban books, are oppressing an author's First Amendment right, are preventing students from learning, are homophobic, and racist” (since the authors of the challenged books happen to be black). Their desperate strategy has only strengthened and proven the rock-solid position of the citizens.

If our students focused solely on core subjects, the data for graduates of Worcester County wanting to attend Wor-Wic would not show the high percentage of remedial classes needed to begin college-level courses in reading, math and writing.

Source: Carol Menzel, Director Of Institutional Research -Wor-Wic Community College, reported that: 71 graduates of Worcester County High School entered Wor-Wic in 2022. Of these students:

13 Students required remedial training in reading ------ 18%

17 Students required remedial training in writing ------ 24%

36 Students required remedial training in mathematics – 51%

This means that these high school graduates could not begin taking college-level classes in English or Mathematics. Of 71 of Worcester County High School students entering Wor-Wic Community College, 39 (55%) required remedial training before starting college-level courses.

Of first-time college students from all schools, 46% require some remedial training before taking college-level courses. (23% writing, 22% reading, 41% mathematics.)

This is not an indictment of our teachers, but rather it’s an indictment of our current Board of Education and those responsible for the curriculum (Superintendent Lou Taylor and Dr. Annette Wallace, Chief Operating and Academics Officer).

In the end, the grandstanding of the proponents of pornography in our schools and how wonderful the Board of Education is, only further provoked and empowered the community. They saw through the political theater.

Our community (and especially our children) are preciously worth fighting for. We will not be silenced, politicized, or characterized as “homophobic,” “transphobic”, “racist” or any other labels they wish to use in an attempt to stop the growing numbers of citizens from speaking out. They realize what the Kirwan Plan (Blueprint for Maryland) really is: Indoctrination vs Education. Kirwan boils down to a conglomerate of left-wing politics, sexualization of minors, equity over equality, segregation, lawlessness, racism, and Black Lives Matter (and their demands) are all curriculum-integrated objectives under Kirwan.

The majority of citizens are not onboard with pornography and books detailing explicit sex acts. They are not onboard with grooming children as young as kindergarten into normalizing deviant behavior, choosing gender identity, performing sex acts, fixation on sexual desires, defying parents, promoting lawlessness, undermining religious values, redefining morality, and teaching them that they are either oppressed or an oppressor based on the color of their skin.

All lower shore counties have awakened to what is going on in our schools. When teachers don’t feel safe in the classrooms and can’t speak out for fear of retaliation, we have a much bigger problem. If the teachers don’t feel safe, neither do the children. This community supports our teachers. If our Board of Education supported our teachers, they would be welcomed and encouraged to speak up and not silenced. Instead, Worcester County has fostered a hostile working environment, which no amount of money can address for teachers to endure under duress.

The solution: Remove the politics from our schools and return to the core subject matter of Science, Math, History, & English.

Will there be another evening board meeting, or only when the Board of Education needs to run political interference for themselves? You can ask them by email below:

Elena McComas: elena.mccomas@worcesterk12.org

Todd Ferrante: todd.ferrante@worcesterk12.org

William Buchanan: william.buchanan@worcesterk12.org

Donald Smack: donald.smack@worcesterk12.org

Jon Andes: jon.andes@worcesterk12.org

William Gordy: william.gordy@worcesterk12.org

Nathaniel Passwaters: nathaniel.passwaters@worcesterk12.org