By DAVID BOYLE
The Oct. 3 Fairbanks school board election is critical for keeping parents in charge of their children.
If the leftists win, Fairbanks will be getting a board that welcomes Critical Race Theory, DEI, and the belief that they know better than parents or guardians.
The three leftist candidates are Bobby Burgess, Meredith Maple, and Tim Doran.
The moderate/conservative candidates are April Smith, Maggie Matheson, and Michael Humphrey.
And once again, money is flowing into the state from Outside interests to affect the election results. The leftist candidates have outraised the more moderate and conservative candidates by $40,819 to $26,547.
Much of the funding for the left-leaning candidates has come from the “Putting Alaskans First Committee,” which is funded mostly by government union PACs, including the NEA-PACE teachers union. The contact person and treasurer is Joelle Hall of the Alaska AFL-CIO labor union.
Here is its most recent APOC report:
“Putting Alaskans First Committee” sounds like a good organization, right? But most of the funding for the “Putting Alaskans First Committee” comes from Outside Alaska organizations. Here is a quote from its website where it even says that “A majority of contributions … came from outside the state of Alaska”:
“Paid for by the Putting Alaskans First Committee, 3333 Denali St. Ste. 125 Anchorage, AK 99503. I, Kim Hays, Chair approved this message. Top three contributors are UNITE AMERICA PAC of Denver, CO, LIUNA Political Fund of Washington, DC, and NEA Advocacy Fund of Washington, DC. This NOTICE TO VOTERS is required by Alaska law. I certify that this advertisement is not authorized, paid for, or approved by the candidate. A majority of contributions to Putting Alaskans First Committee came from outside the State of Alaska.”
Why do Outside organizations from Denver, Colo. and Washington, D.C. have such an interest in the Fairbanks school board election?
Why are the campaigns of Burgess, Meredith, and Duran funded by these Outside interests?
It appears as if the leftist candidates are running a pretender campaign, hiding the values they really represent. Their campaign pages are plain vanilla and say very little about their values and beliefs.
Do you want your children to be masked in class? Candidate Burgess would probably push to mask your children. If you had seen him at the latest school board meeting, that would have to be your conclusion:
April Smith is Burgess’ opponent and has opposed the masking of students and the closure of schools during the pandemic. All three leftist candidates running now criticize her for that stance. Smith has also opposed Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies in the school district. Most of the opposition to April Smith has come from the transgender/gender identity community, which favors hiding a student’s gender transitioning from parents.
The conservative candidates are being attacked for their “focus on culture wars” and not academics, when in fact, the Left has brought the culture wars to the classroom in its attempts to indoctrinate our children.
And their attempts to replace parents with radical leftist ideas have awakened mama bears.
The Fairbanks Education Association, which is the teachers’ union associated with the NEA, has endorsed Burgess, Doran, and Maple. That’s because the union believes the focus of schools should be on equity and inclusion and most of all, increased funding. The ABCs seem to be buried somewhere in their agenda.
Even the radical environmental organization The Alaska Center (For the Environment) has endorsed the three leftist school board candidates.
Fairbanks voters, do you want these three teacher-union endorsed candidates negotiating union contracts and raising your taxes?
Burgess, who is running against incumbent April Smith, believes the only way to improve K-12 education is more funding. He believes the Alaska Reads Act is okay but there is not enough money to implement it. He quotes the usual “flat funding” complaint that the teacher’s union has pushed for the past few years, without acknowledging that extra funding is awarded to schools year after year, outside of the base student allocation.
Meredith Maple is running against Maggie Matheson. She is married to Kell Gitter who was a female in 2013. Here is a quote from article from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, May 1, 2013: “Kelly Gitter’s shoelaces were frozen, and her socks were wet after she played for the first time in the Springfest Rugby Tournament on Saturday afternoon at the University of Alaska Fairbanks”. Having transitioned to a male, Gitter and her/his wife Maple are raising their adopted child.
Meredith Maple states on her web site that “Pre-K programming not only prepares students for Kindergarten, but also improves their lives permanently. “ Apparently, Maple believes it is the responsibility of teachers to “program” children in their values, not parent’s values.
Michael Humphrey is a conservative candidate running against Tim Doran. Tim Doran is currently on the board and is a retired teacher/principal. Humphrey states on his website that, “Children have the right to be secure in their bathrooms and private spaces, in their sports, and in the values imparted to them by their parents without facing new values proposition from positions of authority at school.”
Humphrey also believes in the teaching of core subjects and a rigorous focus on academics.
So, it’s up to Fairbanks voters: Do you want boys who identify as girls to use girls’ bathrooms?
Fairbanks, do you believe a student’s pronoun usage and transgenderism should be hidden from parents?
Do you believe diversity, equity and inclusion are more important than teaching a child how to read?
You have a clear choice.
Here are the moderate/conservative candidates: Michael Humphrey, April Smith, and Maggie Matheson.
Here are the leftist candidates: Bobby Burgess, Meredith Maple, and Tim Doran.
Remember, elections do have consequences.
Electing these leftists will dramatically change the education of your children.
You need to get out and vote.
Vote for your children and grandchildren. They are depending on you!
David Boyle is the education writer for Must Read Alaska.
