2.6.23
“TASB’s Transgender Agenda Being Shoved at Texas Public Schools”
From Donna Garner
COMMENTS FROM DONNA GARNER: Through the years, TASB (Texas Association of School Boards) has made itself the “last word.” When Congress or the Texas Legislature passes a new law, school administrators basically do nothing to implement it until they see how TASB is going to interpret the law for them.
TASB puts its own leftist spin on things, and that is how it comes down the pike for Texas administrators who then implement TASB’s agenda into their own public school districts.
The most recent egregious example is TASB’s radically pro-transgender guidance document released in Jan. 2023 and spewed all over the Texas public schools by TASB’s multi-thousands of members.
***To read the Jan. 2023 radically pro-transgender guidance from
The truth is that the Biden administration along with TASB are trying to make Texas public schools fall in line with their “interpretation” of Title IX which pushes gender identity and sexual orientation. However, Congress has never voted to add these to Title IX. Therefore, gender identity and sexual orientation are not in the Title IX law, and Texas public schools are not required to implement TASB’s guidance.
Over the years, TASB has become the “voice.” TASB requires “dues,” and those dues come from the taxpayers’ pockets. Then TASB uses those dues to pay for big-time lobbyists who go to Austin and lobby the legislature for more school funding. That funding, of course, has to come from the taxpayers. In essence, TASB is lobbying us to raise taxes on ourselves!
When classroom teachers choose to join professional education organizations, the classroom teachers have to pay for their own dues and convention expenses. The same should be true for TASB. If school administrators want to belong to professional organizations and attend their frequent and expensive get-togethers, the school administrators should have to pay their own way. Taxpayers should not get stuck with the tab.
Through the years, TASB trains school administrators to think that they are in an equal position with school board members. That is not the correct “seating” arrangement. The school board members are elected by “we the people.” The supe is not.
My prediction is that if school administrators had to pay for their own TASB dues, that powerful organization would lose most of its members. Nobody appointed TASB to have the authority to control Texas public schools.
From what I have been told, members of the Texas State Board of Education are in the process of adopting a resolution to counter TASB’s inaccurate misinterpretation of Title IX.
The Texas Senate and House also have numerous bills already filed against TASB’s misinterpretation of Title IX.
***To read the 1.30.23 letter sent to TASB by the Texas Legislators: https://www.scribd.com/document/622818497/January-Letter-to-School-Board-Presidents-Re-TASB-Vf-2#
Please read The Daily Caller article posted below which tells what concerned Texas Legislators are doing to fight back against the wrong guidance given by TASB.
1.30.23 – Daily Caller
“Texas Republicans Ask All School Districts To Leave Texas Association of School Boards Immediately”
By Mary Rooke
Excerpts from this article:
Several members of the Texas legislature sent a letter to every school district in the state asking them to immediately leave the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB).
Texas state Representatives, led by GOP Rep. Brian Harrison, are asking school districts to leave the TASB, claiming recent decisions the association made regarding school board protests and transgender students prove to Texas parents that the TASB “work[s] against their values and potentially place[s] their children in harm’s way,” according to the letter shared exclusively with the Daily Caller.
The nine signatories — GOP Reps. Brian Harrison, Briscoe Cain, Richard Hayes, Terri Leo-Wilson, Matt Schaefer, Nate Schatzline, Bryan Slaton, Mark Dorazio and Tony Tinderholt — said that although they “appreciate” that TASB left the National School Boards Association in May 2022, the amount of time the decision took to make was troubling.
***To read the 1.30.23 letter sent to TASB by the Texas Legislators: https://www.scribd.com/document/622818497/January-Letter-to-School-Board-Presidents-Re-TASB-Vf-2#
“We were shocked last year that it took the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) almost an entire year to leave the National School Boards Association (NSBA) after it sent an indefensible letter equating parental involvement at school board meetings to ‘heinous actions’ which ‘could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism’ and called on federal law enforcement to potentially target parents,” the letter stated.
The Texas lawmakers also took issue with TASB’s “radically pro-transgender” guidance released in January…
***To read the Jan. 2023 radically pro-transgender guidance from TASB: https://www.tasb.org/services/legal-services/tasb-school-law-esource/students/documents/legal_issues_related_to_transgender_students.pdf/
“This dangerous legal advisory appears to encourage school districts to refrain from reporting child abuse and to obscure information regarding children exhibiting gender dysphoria from their parents,” the letter stated. “In the guidance, TASB also may be encouraging schools to violate Texas’s recent law, the ‘Save Girls’ Sports Act,’ and allow biological males to participate in girls’ sports. We feel duty bound to make sure all elected officials charged with overseeing the education of Texas student[s] are aware of this.”
Harrison told the Daily Caller that Texas parents shouldn’t be responsible for funding “woke ideology” with their tax dollars.
“It’s bad enough that harmful woke ideology is being pushed on Texas students over the objection of their parents, but worse that local elected officials are forcing those same parents to fund it with their tax dollars,” Harrison told the Caller. “That must end. I appreciate my colleagues joining me in fighting to stop the continued weaponization of our constituents’ tax dollars against them.”
Texas school districts are not required to be part of TASB or any school board organization. The representatives have directed their offices to help provide school districts with alternatives for the services TASB currently handles.