If you need to escalate above the principal, assuming a US public school system, the escalation pattern is school superintendent->school board->state representative.
Not that Ive done this before.
Is this a public school? Because if so, it sounds really strange that they’re doing these things. They surely know better.
From that mutual acquaintance I’ve learned that the school group (a Charter group) has a grievance process that apparently gets taken very seriously. That may be my internal path of escalation to complement any media option.
It is a public charter school in Texas. To give some flavor, Governor Abbot gave a speech at one of the other schools nearby in the same system the other night and it was standing room only. So, they may have a high degree of tolerance for right-wing B.S.
Oh I didn’t realize it was a charter school. Lunacy and ultra right BS is allowed and encouraged in those isn’t it? Does Texas have regular public school districts?
If interested, here is my most recent reply, anonymized. There is no legal angle to this so I don’t think posting is a problem.
I appreciate your reply Mr. Principal. Unfortunately, while I was originally content to leave this issue alone, I found out today that these assignments were graded and presumably contribute to Son’s overall grade. Now we have a real problem. It was one thing to be wasting a couple days pursuing pseudo-intellectual bullshit under the guise of skepticism. It is different if this un-scientific tangent contributes to the students’ GPA. This has nothing to do with chemistry and should not factor into any grades. I now seriously doubt the fitness of Mr. Fringy to continue teaching at a school that ostensibly prides itself on classical education. Chemistry is a fitting part of a classical education, stroking the ego of a teacher who thinks he’s got it all figured out after some classes at the Universities of Facebook and Youtube is not.
In one of his responses Mr. Fringy says the “need to engage contrary ideas - this is the essence of science.” This is a distortion of the truth - science is about creating a hypothesis, testing it against data, drawing a conclusion and defending it against peer review. Following the data. Contrary ideas by themselves have no scientific value unless they can be backed up by evidence. We don’t, or at least didn’t, seriously engage with people who considered the moon landing to be faked, the earth to be flat or that bigfoot strolls around remote areas of the Pacific Northwest. Nor was vaccine skepticism something found much outside the realm of people who thought crystals healed or water had memory - or at least not until we found ourselves in a pandemic that politicized something that had been an accepted fact of life since the Polio vaccine. And now, in Texas Suburb in 2022, we have an ostensibly educated science teacher doing coursework on how vaccines are a big government plan to oppress and mind-control the population and how the unvaccinated are the true victims. Only a population fortunate enough to grow up without the horrors of Polio, SmallPox and Measels, due to vaccines, could muster such chutzpah.
Fix this.
RichVR
2681
Nuke the teacher. In any way that you can. He shouldn’t be a teacher anymore.
Edit: Mr. Fringy? Name checks out. I applaud the letter. Looking forward to see the answer.
Thrag
2682
Seriously. My parents generation had polio outbreaks at summer camps. Scared the shit out of them. They would have walk across fire to get us kids vaccinated.
Mr. Fringy was artistic license.
The easy way to remember is that the school official is principal (because he/she is your “pal”) and standing firm on your beliefs is principle.
So this is very much a matter of princple.
As well as a matter of the principal.
Or the principal’s principles, or lack thereof.
RichVR
2685
I am embarrassed. But still good. :)
Houngan
2686
I like most of it, I would replace the later bits, such as the moon landing, etc. with concrete examples of what the teacher is actually saying. While hyperbole should be an effective method of dealing with this sort of thing, it often leads to a he said/she said type exchange that winds up in the court of public opinion. I think it goes Math-Physics-Chemistry-Biology, Chemistry is adjacent to pure science like few other things are, and it has exactly zero to do with vaccines and biology in the larger sense. To be teaching that in a Chemistry class is like teaching a Commercial Driver’s License course during Driver’s Ed for 15-year-olds. He’s not qualified and they’re not ready to question, it’s a gross abuse of academic power.
If I end up escalating to the “district” via a grievance, I’ll dial back the hyperbole. Same if I end up with my mug on TV again - I’ll stick to this shouldn’t be in chemistry. This was my reflex response to seeing the grades and comments and I couldn’t resist leaning into it a little bit.
Houngan
2688
Believe me I get it, I would be livid in this situation. I guess my thought, based on talking to a lot of dumb but popular people in my life, is that if you go Bigfoot, then every moron suddenly thinks they have a relevant input. “Oh, he’s talking about Bigfoot and moon landings and Teacher Dipshit is just trying to teach Chemistry, where does he get off! Chemistry is much more impressive than that!” That shit happens, unfortunately.
I would go towards the idea that as a Chemistry teacher, he has no training to accurately assess medical or biology matters. I made it through most of undergrad Chemistry and Biology, and I would wager I know more than he does on the bio side, and I’m a hell of a long way from addressing virology and immunization theory.
Wow, this would drive me nuts, and I admire the restraint, but also recommend steering the next written response in the way Houngan recommends. Good luck!
Jeez, no kidding. The antivaxx dimwits don’t realize that it’s only thanks to mass vaccination campaigns we don’t live in a country rife with whooping cough, diptheria, polio, smallpox, measles/rubella, mumps etc.* and that almost all kids make it out of early childhood alive.
I was unfortunately stricken with two of those up there as a child. The measles at 7 or so and the mumps at 9. I still vaguely remember a fever dream that I had during the latter sickness.
My favorite thing is the antivax people who say that the COVID vaccines don’t totally prevent infection like the polio vaccines did, and that if they were as good as the polio vaccines are, they would totally take them.
(Like the COVID vaccines, the polio vaccine is / was 80-90% effective in preventing severe illness, not in preventing infection.)
This is a good point. I’d also recommend avoiding any emotion in your written communication. Try not to use language that reveals you’re irritated and just stay rational and courteous. If you let emotion sneak in, it might get in the way of reason. (Theirs, not yours.)
Scuzz
2693
That might work depending on what school district and state you live in. I am in California and I would bet that chain wouldn’t work here. Maybe the news media, again depending on where you are is the next route. But be prepared for the flak.
Maybe you should ask for a meeting with the teacher?
Next step, if needed, is media and a grievance with ResponsiveEd the group that runs this collection of Charter Schools. The organization apparently takes the grievances very seriously as they want to protect their reputation. As for flak, I was willing to risk it before on behalf of my daughter (not that anyone ended up attacking us), can’t do less for my son.
