Kenosha parent’s group speaks out against misinformation about recall

Across the nation, parents are rising up against mask mandates, financial mismanagement, and CRT indoctrination in schools. Moms for Liberty, a local Parent’s group in Kenosha, WI is mounting a recall campaign against Kenosha Unified School District’s School Board President, Yolanda Adams.

Naturally, several of her supporters and the teacher’s union have launched an effort to demean the group and spread misinformation about the group’s intentions.

Amanda, Nedewski, Co-Chair and spokesperson for Moms for Liberty, is speaking out against the smear campaign and defends her group’s recall effort against Board President, Yolanda Adams.  Here is her statement:

IN OPPOSITION TO A BOYCOTT OF OFFICIAL STUDENT COUNT DAY & REASONS FOR THE RECALL

As the Co-Chair and spokesperson for Moms for Liberty – Kenosha County-WI, I state emphatically that our organization has not planned and does not support any organized boycotting of upcoming official student count days.  Any claims associating Moms for Liberty with organized boycotts of KUSD official count day are blatantly false. Any media outlet that has published these false claims is willingly engaged in journalistic malpractice.

The number one priority of Moms for Liberty is our children, and it is our official position that purposefully keeping students out of school on an official count day with the intention of manipulating district funding would only result in reduced resources available to all our students.  Any such action would directly conflict with our commitment to working with school leadership through dialogue, negotiation, and compromise.

Moms for Liberty is a national parent organization with chapters in 29 states and 100 counties, and currently has over 20,000 members and is growing every day.  Our primary mission is to hold officials accountable for decisions affecting our children and families.  This mission transcends political ideology by putting children and families ahead of politics. When officials cannot be held accountable or refuse to engage with constituents on matters related to our children, we work to replace them with individuals who will keep all politics out of our schools, just as we are doing with the effort to recall Ms. Adams, the current President of the KUSD school board.  In addition to the recall, we have recruited several seriously motivated parents to replace hyper-partisan school board members in the upcoming spring election.

Recalling an elected official is always the very last resort and is not to be taken lightly. This is not about masks and is not a temperamental reaction to not getting our way.  This recall is about a school board president and several hyper-partisan board members who disrespectfully treat parents and students in the district as if they are inferior and ignorant.

Under Ms. Adams’ leadership, the board has recklessly and frivolously spent hard-earned taxpayer dollars with zero accountability for their wastefulness and inefficiency.  Throughout the pandemic, parents worked hard to establish meaningful positive relationships with KUSD leadership, to understand the district’s complex circumstances in this unique time, and to negotiate and compromise on solutions that would best serve all students. Despite these sincere efforts to learn and understand educators’ and administrators’ points of view, parents have been largely ignored by the Kenosha school board. Since March of 2020, the KUSD school board has consistently voted to usurp student and parental rights to choose what is in the best interest of their children. Several board members have repeatedly disregarded the will of the electorate by ignoring the outcomes of parent surveys, emails, phone calls, and letters.

As elected officials, the board’s job is to represent the will of the electorate, instead, they punted. They consistently deferred their decisions on covid safety measures to the local health director, thus, they have effectively abdicated their voting rights to an unelected bureaucrat who does not represent voters.

During Ms. Adams’ time with the KUSD school board, the achievement gap has significantly widened, the overall district report card has remained woefully flat, and taxes have increased. Last year enrollment in the district dropped by an unprecedented 1,336 students, resulting in an unexpected, unplanned budgetary deficit of nearly $3 Million. KUSD has only been able to recover about 175 of those students, nowhere near enough to offset the deficit. The board has failed to address this deficit, and they have continuously failed to explain why the district’s expenses continue to increase in the face of declining enrollment. At the same time, they continue to ask for more money while academic and social outcomes decline.  This failing record can only be stopped by replacing some board members with qualified leaders who are committed to putting students first, and to operating the district with efficiency and fiscal responsibility.

To add insult to injury, in the face of the nearly $73,000,000 in “covid relief” money that KUSD received, the board voted for a tax levy of 9.63%. This was a major slap in the face to district taxpayers who are already burdened and have been shown zero accountability for their money.

The law REQUIRES that nearly $44 Million of that “covid relief” money must include community input when deciding how it will be spent. To date, the district has never reached out to the whole community for insight or ideas for how to responsibly spend this money.  Clearly, Ms. Adams and her willing accomplices on the board feel they “know better and to reach out to the community is beneath them.

Ms. Adams’ current term ends in April 2023, the seats currently held by Rebecca Stevens, Tony Garcia, and Atifa Robinson will be challenged by qualified and motivated candidates in the April of 2022 election.  Due to state rules, Mary Modder, Todd Price, and Todd Battle cannot be recalled at this time because they are in the first year of their current terms in office.

If the recall and spring elections are successful, we have the potential to impact significant change in our school district that, ultimately, not only benefits students but raises the standard of living for our entire community.   We will NOT co-parent with the government. They work with us, and we must all have a seat at the table.