Too many school-board members, along with others in the educational establishment, have a low opinion of parents. They don’t view it as their role to cooperate with families in the process of educating children. Instead, these elitist educators believe they are in competition with parents over the minds of kids, and that they know better than the parents. Often, their hopes for radically changing society depend on them instilling certain ideas and behaviours in young people, and parents stand in the way of that mission.

Perhaps the most striking example of this condescending, anti-parent perspective is how schools now conceal information about students’ gender identities from parents, and hold gender-counselling sessions with students without parents’ knowledge. In one case, a Massachusetts teacher was fired because she defied the school principal’s demand to keep an 11-year-old girl’s gender transition a secret from her parents. This teacher told the parents that their daughter had announced she was ‘genderqueer’ and that teachers were referring to her by a new masculine name. She was then summarily fired when the parents complained that school officials were acting against their wishes.

Meanwhile, as if implacably woke-minded school boards weren’t enough to contend with, parents also still face the threat of an FBI investigation if they protest too loudly. While the NSBA has withdrawn its letter, the DoJ is still chasing after parents. Garland has denied using counter-terrorism statutes to investigate parents, but reports of the FBI interviewing parents after tips to the National Threat Operations Centre have been confirmed by a whistleblower within the DoJ. None of the parents has been charged, but getting a knock on the door from the FBI certainly chills parents’ rights to speak up about how schools are run.