Jenny Hatch show interview with Allison Jones

A live interview on Callin Wednesday at 1:00 pm Denver time. The Transcript of this show is embedded below!

Click here to listen to this interview

Biography

My name is Allison Jones and I live with my husband and our two children in Douglas County, Colorado.

We have a 9th grader and a 5th grader and they both attend Douglas County Schools. 

In my former professional life, I was a public school teacher teaching kindergarten, first and second grade students. I began my teaching career in 1999 and spent a decade in the classroom.

Eight of those years, I taught in Douglas County. In 2006, I earned a Master's Degree in Curriculum and Instruction. In 2008 our first child was born and in 2010 I left the classroom to take a few years off to stay at home with him.

In the years that followed we welcomed our daughter and I've not yet returned to the classroom. I'm a large consumer of news and politics and was well aware of race essentialism and radical gender ideology being introduced in classrooms around the country, but I ignorantly thought it wouldn't come to bright red Douglas County. I was wrong.

After learning about the proposed Equity Policy being introduced to the DCSD School Board in the spring of 2021, I joined the Douglas County chapter of FAIR to stand with other parents around the county to keep this garbage out of our schools.

I am currently a member of the Douglas County leadership team and I deal with all things curriculum.

A few slides from Allisons recent presentation to the FAIR Chapter Leaders during our weekly call.

TRANSCRIPT

It's the Jenny Hatch show and I am your host!

My special guest today is Allison Jones, a mom from Douglas County Colorado and she is here to inform us about the “no place for hate” curriculum that's being put in place all over the country.

Allison, welcome to the show!

Thank you thank you for having me. We ready to dive right in…

I heard an hourlong broadcast for the fair chapter leaders last week as Allison presented the deep dive she did. She said it took three months on this curriculum.

And so we want to get kind of the cliff notes version of that presentation, so take it away…

Perfect. well, as we're all keenly aware diversity, equity, and inclusion is sweeping the nation and in the spring of 2021 DEI came to bright red Douglas county.

Which was a surprise to all of us. There was a slide show presentation to the board of education that spring of a proposed equity policy and within this proposed equity policy was the implementation of a program called no place for hate.

No place for hate is a program developed by the antidefamation league or the ADL.

Just a little background on the ADL. They were formed in 1913 with a worthy goal to combat worldwide antisemitism.

And then in 2015 the directorship of the ADL passed from a center left guy called Abe Foxman to a hyperpartisan radically left guy called Jonathan Greenblatt.

He previously worked for the Clinton and Obama administrations. There was a bit of an outcry from more conservative Jews who were worried that Greenblatt was going to be too visibly partisan and that he may work less on fighting against antisemitism and work more in civil rights work.

Well sure enough that's what has happened and in the seven years since Greenblatt's been at the helm, he has steadily pushed the group further to the left.

And then doing so has really destroyed its reputation as being above politics. So some things about No place for hate.

No place for hate keeps our kids hyper focused on differences they cannot control.

Like their race, their gender, their religion, socioeconomic status, ability or disability, and even their parents marital status.

No place for hate tells kids those differences determine their identity and suggest that their identity dictates if they're a member of either a dominant or a victim group.

No place for hate encourages teachers to introduce radical gender ideology in the classroom.

In the resource and guidebook that I went through there's an entire section called “let's get it right” using correct pronouns and names.

Here kids are taught to be careful not to misgender their peers. It encourages teachers to ask students what their gender pronouns are and then to correct students when they don't use their peers chosen pronouns.

No place for hate proudly fosters social justice. Now presents itself as a compassionate altruistic and anti bullying program to fight racism and help schools create a more equitable and inclusive climate.

But once you get to the resource guide it dispels any misapprehension that No place for hate is about promoting kindness, harmony, or even inclusion. A quote that I found that was just kind of eye opening for me in the guide was quote…

“If we want young people to understand how to engage in changing systems in society it is critical that adults encourage them to do so by providing opportunity to practice while imparting the necessary skills and knowledge.”

The first step is to facilitate students learning about the issues and then to get them involved in action. Social justice activism is a dominant feature in no place for hate.

I was surprised Allison by how many schools they're claiming to have this curriculum embedded in.

Yes. So the website claims that 1800 schools nationwide have been designated No place for hate schools. There's a series of steps that schools need to go through to receive that designation.

Including staff and students and sometimes even families signing a pledge and the pledge, it certainly has some nice things promoting empathy and kindness.

But it also talks a lot about activism and what kids need to do to be a part of this program. After the pledge, students and schools are required to do three schoolwide activities that the ADL must approve.

I gave a few examples in my presentation.

I'll just give a quick one right now as an example. For elementary students, would be letter writing campaigns to public libraries and local bookstores.

Encouraging them to purchase books that what the ADL calls under the multicultural umbrella and what they consider under the multicultural umbrella is homosexual information and gender ideology.

So some of the books that they suggested were a book called Jacob's new dress about a little boy who decides he's a girl and wants to pick out a dress and another one called Aiden becomes a brother.

And this is about a little girl who decides that she's a boy now, so these are books that the ADL wants teachers to introduce to elementary age students and then they want those kids having the libraries purchase them.

That's really something.

Well and you know the ADL by introducing this to children without parents knowledge or consent. I mean is usurping their rights to introduce these controversial subjects to their children.

But that's what they want to do right.

Right

So go ahead.

I think the main question I have at this point is what did you do with FAIRs help to get this curriculum out of the Douglas county schools? Okay.

So the first thing we did was we decided, we thought at first, I'll dive into this curriculum and we'll do like a quick one pager. Well, there was no way we're going to be able to do a one pager just for the listeners to know.

I put a link in the show page to my Substack where I have put all of the slides that Allison shared with me from her presentation.

Perfect, so what we did is we went ahead and created this package, all about some of the information I shared with you, and then a whole lot more, so the parents were really aware of the ADL and what this program is all about.

Once we got the packet out we sort of had an in person training, sort of where parents could bring their packet, ask questions, and share experiences and then we really empowered parents to be brave and bold by asking their teacher or counselor who is sponsoring this.

Like what's the specific information on the curriculum that's going to be covered? We empowered them to go to their school leaders to go to their child's teacher and say, “Why are you doing this?” and then we wanted parents to engage with their kids about No place for hate. I don't think a lot of parents even know this is happening in the school.

To tell you the truth, and when kids sign this pledge I don't think a lot of parents realize their signatures go to the ADL. Like the ADL will have their child's information once they are participating in this program.

Wow

Yeah and finally we encouraged parents who had a negative experience with No place for hate to advocate for their kids by sharing or by completing a fair transparency report and to go to our board of education and to go to their school leaders and provide alternatives that might cover the best of No place for hate without the ideological risk.

Because there is a little bit there that's good and we all can agree on. Right.

Absolutely. Of course it does have a very nice veneer at the beginning, it really does, and it's introductory materials but once you get into it you realize it is contentious and partisan and just ideological.

Well, and how much of the school day is taken up with these activities that should be spent on basic skills?

Absolutely. The other part of this program is that there's 181 lesson plans that the ADL encourages teachers to use in their classrooms and they also have the common core standards attached to them, so teachers could implement these lesson plans while meeting a common core english standard.

Interesting

Yeah

So what did you do to get it out of Douglas county? Just organized the parents, and then said we're done with this, did you have to threaten any legal action?

Well what we did is we reclaimed our school board. So in 2020 we had four seats up and that was for control of the board and while we couldn't endorse a candidate as being a part of being FAIR.

We couldn't endorse a candidate. However we were able to engage with them. We educated them and they were super receptive, so we educated our community.

We educated these board members and they were overwhelmingly elected. I mean parents were sick of the politicalization of their children.

The loss of privacy. That privacy thing is so important to me, especially with the elementary age children. You know, how dare they be doing any sort of information gathering to some national political organization that just turns privacy on its head.

Absolutely. There was a couple of schools contacted us, and said that their students, they didn't sign a paper pledge but it was a digital pledge, where they had to agree to four or five different things and then submit it.

So I don't know if that was sent on with their email address to the ADL we just don't know where this information was sent so that's scary too.

So once these board members were in place, what like 2021, what did they do?

So we were able to we had some bumps and bruises in the beginning but we were able to hire an amazing prohuman superintendent her name is Erin callin.

She was leader of a charter school in our district for several years and she did a lot of work with fair in her charter american academy and super receptive to us

And we've met with her she understood the complications with keeping this program and the biggest thing that she said to us was she met with every single school leader

And she said you know I don't think a lot of school leaders wanted to push this stuff but I don't think they felt like they had support to push back against their woke teachers

Yeah and I think that's true for a lot of educators

With aaron callin being in I think these administrators just want to get rid of the woke stuff and just get back to teaching kids and I think they know they'll be supported because

Really there's only one or two crazy wokesters in every building that rouse everybody up and if you can just tell them to zip it I think that'll go a long way

Yeah well that is awesome it's just wonderful to hear about a district that use what I would call political process legal political process to grab their schools back and then start down a path of just more parental involvement and more engagement with the community

I really think that's the key to getting those school board members voted in and what a shining example for the rest of the country yeah

Last year nearly 40% of our schools were contracted with no place for hate and now we're down to just three and we have 89 schools in our district

Yeah and if there is a school here or there that really wants this curriculum they should have the autonomy to do that too if it's a charter school or a private school

Even a public school if this is what the people in that school want great have at it but I think the majority want to err on the side of privacy and having parents be the jones to educate their children about these very difficult moral issues

Yeah absolutely

Well that is just a wonderful presentation allison would any of the listeners like to call in to contribute to the chat I see that we've had a couple of comments

Someone said I wish the outcry had come from lefty jews who care about free speech and other freedoms in my opinion the adl makes it harder to be a jew in america and makes antisemitism worse

So that's the opinion of somebody who's listening to the show it looks like we don't have interest in callers I would just like to finish the show by talking a little bit about fair

For those of you who don't know about this new national organization we've been going for about a year I am the chapter leader in boulder county colorado

And boulder is a traditionally very left progressive part of the country most of our schools have had diversity curriculums for decades when we first moved here

We chose to home school our children because we felt like they wouldn't be served by the local elementary school and it just felt like it was a little bit out of control

And so our family has interfaced with charter school and a little bit of the public schools here but mostly we did home school over the years for my five children

But I would have loved to have been able to send them I love public schooling I had a rich public school experience in detroit when I was growing up and I wish my children could have enjoyed that more

But there was a lot of crazy going on here in boulder and I think some of those curriculums were actually formed and developed right here in boulder colorado

So I'm in the belly of the beast but I love being a part of fair because as the foundation against intolerance and racism the whole goal is to promote our human commonalities

What we share together as human beings and I love a prohuman approach because it gets us outside of the exteriors and is that what brought you to fair as well

Allison

Oh absolutely I learned about fair on I think it was a megyn kelly podcast actually and funny enough when I discovered this proposed equity policy

Somehow our chapter had just begun and I think I was one of the first 50 members or something

Wonderful we've got a caller and he's the same one who made the comment in the chat so welcome bk you are free to speak

Hi there yeah thanks for taking my call I joined the room because jenny I've heard you comment on other collins and thought that you were really thoughtful and interesting and was interested in more of your thoughts on stuff

And I'm on the left of both of you and you two would probably call me woke but I totally agree that these things shouldn't be forced upon schools without discussion

Especially because it makes people feel like people on the left are all wanting to just push these things on people without being in community with our neighbors and fellow parents

When they're sneaky about it that really does kind of get my radar going why do they feel the need to bypass the parents in the community and sneak it in

What sort of guilt does that indicate

Yeah I wonder if because you said that the materials include a lot of callin to action people on the left feel like this focus on identity politics is like a way to divert energy away from getting us to understand ourselves as being part of a class together

We're working class people or middle class people are just the 99% that maybe this jonathan castle whatever his name is at the adl greenblatt yeah greenblatt

I'm not very religiously jewish but my dad was jewish and my grandfather fled vienna during the holocaust the day that hitler invaded so it's like even though I'm not religiously jewish

I do care a lot about the fact that the adl is acting ridiculously and it makes the left look bad it makes you look bad I've worked in a lot of working class places where people really do seem to think that they're not necessarily antisemitic semitic

But just have ignorant thoughts about being jewish and I feel like the adl has never helped I've never felt like the adl has my back and similarly with this

It's like these things look like lefty projects but I wouldn't call them lefty or woke I don't really know what to call them instead

They really are anti human and anti family because one of the things that we're finding with some of these curriculums is they want the children to kind of think of their parents as the enemy

We're going to have a secret and we're going to have a secret about your gender and if you don't want to tell your parents that you've changed your gender

We've got your back and we'll help you transition and we don't have to tell mom and dad that is so divisive to the family and it's something that I'm pushing back against because how dare they mess with a child's ideology around their own personhood and their gender

And then if they're questioning their religion and they're questioning their parents politics and they're being taught to be a little activist what's the goal

What are we trying to accomplish

Isn't that a solinsky tactic too to get in there and get in there and get in the kids heads right just completely bypass their parents that's how we're going to change them

Well when all you see are externalities the external color or clothes or behavior that's all you see you don't get into the heart of a person you don't understand what motivates them

And you know the reverend king said we want to judge each other based on our character not the color of our skin or any other ideology whether it's gender or class or what have you

We wanted to find those prohuman commonalities and that's what I'm all about so bk I'm so glad you called in

The woke are always welcome on my phone

Sorry mumbling I don't know who saw who you just mentioned and you know I don't know a lot about what's going on in schools as far as the gender stuff goes

But I do think that among the most gender radical there is not like we don't sit around being like how do we talk to teenagers without their parents present

That's not something any of us want to do and I think most of us just want to come to like dr king would want more understanding more communicating

Less division

I was just going to say my biggest fear is that if we're focusing on the way people look so much I'm afraid and how all these business about microaggressions and stereotyping and I worry that kids are just going to say

I don't want to be offensive to the new black kid so I'm just going to avoid him you know what I mean and then I start to worry that we're going to self segregate because we're walking on eggshells around each other

That's a fear that I have this actually reminds me brianna joy gray inspired me to seek out the fielder sisters are these academics who have written about something called racecraft

And I watched some of our conversation with tanahasi coates and professor fielder on youtube about racecraft there are a lot of academics who do believe that a lot of this stuff that isn't thought through well

Like the way that affirmative action has been implemented does kind of reinforce racist ideologies

Over into other places I'm involved with fair in the arts and over the arts effort with fair here in colorado and what we're finding and this is john mcwrder in new york

I think he's tied to nyu what we're finding is black students especially who perhaps want to audition for a show or get a special scholarship or reach above and beyond what they would normally do on their own

Are stepping back and not doing it because they don't want to get it because of the color of their skin and talk about unintended consequences

Right yeah and I've talked to people who were like of indian descent and went to a top law school and actually it's harder when you're asian to get into a top law school

Like the affirmative action works against you but people assume that because she's like browner that life is easier for her because of this government imposed racial division

And I used to be for affirmative action but because of like thinking through it in that way that we've reinforced divisions legally I'm familiar with john mcmorder

Yeah we need more people like him to kind of be in the middle between people I guess

Just this week the supreme court agreed to listen to a case during this term tied to that very issue of admissions to universities and the case has been working its way up in the courts

And it was brought by some asian families who felt that their kids were being left out of scholarship situation and admissions that they were fully qualified to have into various schools

But were definitely left out because of their race right

In my research with the adl I discovered that they filed an amicus brief in support of the policy that harvard has so this organization that's supposed to fight discrimination is saying

No we agree you should discriminate against asians and whites

Right

It was really shocking actually

Yeah in the fielder sisters terminal they're committing racecraft which isn't antiracist the fact that they're doing it again makes me wonder if all of these people are just kind of I mean

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist or anything in cahoots are just kind of accidental cahoots because they're all really rich people that of course

Their idea of making the world better is just this like identity politics bs into harvard or whatever instead of being like why is there so much child hunger among these groups

How do we feed and house people if you're rich then that kind of question doesn't come into your you know what you think is like oh how can we let one more black person into this mansion

Not how do we solve all these other bigger problems

Well it's such a thoughtful comment thank you so much bk for your contribution to the overall show I really love hearing from just anybody who's interested in these topics

This show is dedicated to parents and parental rights in education and health care and allison it's just been a joy to get to know you better do you have any final words before I close down the show

No thank you so much and just parents you have the power to reclaim your school board you absolutely

That changed everything for us 100% it does and again you can go over to my substrack to see the slides that allison used in her excellent presentation to the fair chapter leaders last week

And as always just remember that this life is about finding the love and the joy that we can all share together as in our common humanity and so thank you all for coming

And allison I look forward to talking to you in some future time perfect

Thank you so much for having me on today

We'll say goodbye with my little jingle and I hope everybody just has a great day

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