JASON RANTZ
Rantz: HS teachers demanded students pledge support of BLM and abortion
Jun 7, 2022, 6:00 PM
Teachers at Eastlake High School demanded students pledge their support of Black Lives Matter, abortion, open borders, and more left-wing political positions in order to join a school program.
Science teachers Jason Wessels and Michelle Okroy are the faculty advisors for Eastlake’s Link Crew. This program pairs juniors and seniors with incoming freshmen to help them navigate the demands of high school. Students are chosen to participate for being “kind, responsible, a positive role model, has blossoming leadership qualities” in addition to wanting to give back to the school.
But the pair of teachers also demanded the students hold progressive political views in order to participate in the program.
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Pledge your fidelity to left-wing causes
Wessels and Okroy sent parents a Code of Conduct that students must pledge to follow.
The two-page document is separated into four categories. Students must initial each statement and then sign the document — a promise to abide by the rules. Students who do not follow through with their promises will be removed.
Most of the demands are simple, reasonable, and non-controversial. For example, students must agree to be positive role models, curtail bullying, and display a positive school attitude.
But the fourth category on the list is almost entirely political.
Students must initial next to the statements that they believe “Black Lives Matter,” “Love is Love,” “No Human is Illegal,” “Women’s rights are human rights,” and “Kindness is everything.”
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How in the world did this pass muster?
This Code of Conduct is so wildly and obviously inappropriate that it strains credulity to think Wessels and Okroy thought it wise to demand fidelity to these political causes. And it’s hard to believe any non-partisan parent — or student — would allow their kid to sign this document.
Since when is Link Crew political?
Would it ever be appropriate to ask students to pledge an agreement that all lives matter, marriage is between a man and a woman, we should build a border wall, and that life begins at conception? Of course not. And media outlets would demand answers. Here? They’ll stay silent.
So what were these teachers thinking and how did this get past the administration? A spokesperson for the district did not answer a number of questions concerning the document.
“Thank you for your questions and for bringing this to our attention. We will address this matter with the school and the Link Crew advisors,” the spokesperson emailed the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH.
What, if anything, will be done is unclear.
Eastlake HS is … controversial
This is not the first controversy for Eastlake High School.
Last year, students planned to wear red, white, and blue at a high school football game on September 11. It was meant to honor the lives lost during the terrorist attacks. But the principal pulled the plug after some staff claimed wearing those colors could “unintentionally cause offense to some who see [the colors] differently.”
The school is known for left-wing educators that purposefully bring politics into the classroom.
Crystal Visperas was a social studies teacher who recently quit. Signs, posters, and art adorned her wall decrying capitalism as a “death cult,” demanding an end to borders and supporting Black Lives Matter.
Shila Hodgins, a humanities teacher at Eastlake, admitted on a podcast that she and her colleagues “always bring in our politics.”
“There’s no neutral spaces, right? We always bring in our politics, because our history and the systems that we’ve created mean that our identities, our histories are tied to politics,” Hodgins explained. “It’s just … that’s what happens. And so, when we walk in the room, we carry these biases. And these biases or, you know, sometimes someone walks in the room, their entire identity is on display, right? So we know that sometimes we walk in a room with these deep down or more obvious biases. Maybe it’s racial, maybe it’s religious. They’re always with us.”
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