School boards across the country have been in a frenzy in recent years to prove their virtuousness by changing the names of many schools, with the San Francisco board even contemplating erasing the revered figures of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln from school marquees.
But when it comes to a school named after someone who has played a central role in the outrageous effort to enlist the FBI as brownshirts for the leftist takeover of public schools, there's not a peep to be heard.
Viola Garcia, one of the two people who signed the infamous September 29 letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) urging President Joseph R. Biden to use domestic terrorism and hate crime laws against parents, has a school named after her in Houston.
A 1,250-student middle school that openened in the Aldine Independent School District in the fall of 2019 was named Garcia Middle School in her honor. Garcia, who has served as an elected Aldine ISD board member since 1992, in April 2021 went “national” by also being elected president of the Alexandria, Virginia-based NSBA, according to a podcast about her on the Aldine ISD web site. The NSBA is a lobbying group for statewide lobbying groups that in turn represent school boards in their respective states. The other person who signed the letter was NSBA chief executive Chip Slaven.
Just five days after the release of the NSBA letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland roiled the country by issuing a memo that he would use the immense powers of the FBI to identify people who allegedly threaten school board members and would “prosecute offenders when appropriate.” The NSBA and Garland claimed to welcome “spirited debate” at school board meetings, but Garland's vague language of investigating “efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views” was widely interpreted as a threat to parents who dare question the teaching of critical race theory and other leftist ideology in public education.
Even though the Aldine ISD board's policy manual states that the district “shall take no action abridging the freedom of speech” and “citizens shall have the right” to peacefully gather for the redress of grievances, all the other six Aldine ISD school board members did not reply to Schoograder inquires as to whether they plan to censure Garcia or explore renaming the middle school.
If anything, the education establishment has so far seemingly rewarded Garcia for her actions. Schoolgrader last month broke a story about Garcia being named to serve on the prestigious National Assessment Governing Board that assesses the nation's schools by U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The Department of Education announced the appointment on October 13, two weeks after the NSBA letter was signed. But NSBA emails obatined through open records requests by the non-profit group Parents Defending Education show that Garcia knew about her appointment to the governing board at least one day before the NSBA letter was sent, as Aldine ISD spokesman Mike Keeney on September 28 asked Garcia for a comment on what the governing board position meant to her. Garcia in the September 29 NSBA letter acknowledged she had discussed before it was released “threats that schools officials are receiving” with the White House and Department of Education.
The letter claimed that “America's public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat” by parents who are angry at school Covid masking policies or who believe the “propaganda” that critical race theory is taught in public schools.
Garcia, a former principal in Aldine ISD who earned a doctorate in education from the University of Houston and later became the chair of the department of urban education at the University of Houston-Downtown, where she is now a professor emeritus, presumably would be well-versed in what is taught in public schools. But in the letter to Biden she claimed that critical race theory is a “complex” subject only taught in law schools and graduate schools, a notion that has been debunked by even some liberal pundits, as there is ample evidence that critical race theory concepts of white privilege and black victimhood infuse public education. Maybe Garcia should ask Aldine ISD board president Paul Shanklin exactly what he teaches prospective teachers at the University of Houston-Downtown in his courses on “critical pedagogy and multicultural education.”
Shanklin declined to comment on the matter.
Garcia has declined to comment to Schoolgrader about who wrote the letter and to what extent it may have been produced by the Biden Administration to provide cover for its desire to monitor and intimidate parents. The non-profit group Parents Defending Education unearthed an October 12 NSBA memo in which Garcia wrote that “a top priority” for NSBA were concerns over “disruptions at school board meetings” and “growing threats” against school board members. Garcia said the NSBA had been “actively engaged” with the White House, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, the Surgeon General and other federal agencies to address “pandemic related issues.” She added that the NSBA met with White House staff on September 14 to help prepare the letter that would be sent to Garland.
After a number of state school board groups represented by the NSBA expressed outrage that they were not adequately consulted about the letter and they did not think federal intervention in local school matters was appropriate or warranted, the NSBA on October 22 apologized for the tone of the letter and said it would conduct “a formal review of our processes and procedures.” The NSBA has removed the September 29 letter from its web site, after originally cloaking its actions with the American flag. Garland has not retracted his ominous memo, however.
As of November 9, 26 statewide school board organizations had distanced themselves from the NSBA letter, including the Texas Association of School Boards, where Garcia served as president in 2012 and 2013, according to Parents Defending Education. Of those, 12 decided to withdraw membership, participation or dues. Parents Defending Education, which has exposed the growing teaching of critical race theory in schools, has also asked the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Inspector General to investigate whether the appointment of Garcia to the National Assessment Governing Board was related to her signing the NSBA letter.
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