Since many are not able to attend the MCPS Board Meetings given when they are held, and since even less will search through BoardDocs to find the meeting agendas with submitted testimony, we are sharing one very especially powerful testimony by Hisham Garti, the director for the Montgomery County Muslim Council. In this testimony he addresses much of the hypocrisy of the Board of Education and the systemic disregard for families and children in the actions of MCPS.
Dr. McKnight, esteemed board members, greetings.
My name is Hisham Garti, I am the outreach director for the Montgomery County Muslim Council.
Allow me to begin by stating that having only 2 minutes to argue the following points pertaining to such an important and controversial yet highly sensitive topic affecting our youth is a disgrace – I will therefore reiterate our community’s invitation (on behalf of the thousands of MCPS families) to meet with you Dr. McKnight, and not your vice-superintendent’s lieutenants, to find compromises. We must meet with you personally to explain a few details to you that, based on your words and actions, you might not be aware of when it comes to the diverse people of MoCo and their religions:
- Not one family that has come forth to complain to us has ever mentioned anything against more efforts to push for inclusiveness and protection of all minorities, including the LGBTQ community, but they demand RESPECT FOR ALL in the true spirit of Equity.
- Ours is a county with no “major” religion, but rather is made up of several cities that have most recently ranked as most diverse in America (3 of the top 5 were), with a multitude of religions represented therein. This makes every religious group therefore a “minority”. The advocacy taking place here is for providing a safe and inclusive environment for all children in MCPS (even those of faith) to learn comfortably about subjects that would make them the leaders of tomorrow. Reinstate the opt out please. Andray, my African American neighbor and friend, is truly upset over this and wants to take his 2 children to private school. Kimberly, a Jewish mother of 3, past PTA member in my town, cannot believe her children HAVE to sit through material clearly dealing with sexuality and confusing gender concepts when she and her spouse ARE NOT READY to discuss them with their young children yet. They are not here, I promised them I would be.
- Inconsistencies in your previous rebuttal comments made on 05/25:
- Ms. Hazel – “these texts are in our literacy curriculum and our teachers are teaching literacy standards using inclusive texts” -Simply put, and as was confirmed during our meeting with you and Dr. Pugh, there was no formal training for how these texts were to be utilized by teachers, nor was there a consistent roll out of the program. Furthermore, these books are not just addressing literacy topics, some of them actually focus specifically on the lifestyle, i.e. the sexual attraction to those of same gender, Drag, and can be quite graphic for young minds.
- Mr. Kim – “but across the board, by staying true to the value of diversity and inclusion, we addressing this issue in our schools…”. Young sir, the reality is we are not. Forcing young minds to wonder about graphic content that they might not have been prepared to address at home yet, and without the consent of their guardians since the topic is sensitive and divisive, simply does not achieve the desired outcome you mentioned but rather can lead to more divisiveness and confrontations at school where the lack of resources is frankly ABSOLUTELY not conducive to any real resolution. You know what could work better? A true class and training of self AND mutual respect, for all and regardless of differences (from skin tone to religious beliefs to sexual orientation…), everyone deserves respect and has equal human rights!
- Dr. McKnight – “we would expect that there are values and lessons that come out of every home…and this is not an invasion of that”. Coming from such a high ranking executive as yourself who champions inclusivity for all, I can’t help but feel disingenuity in this. You really are trying to say to parents: you teach what you want at home, we will force your children to sit through our texts and allow some of our teachers to conduct full on discussions on the subject but not the language part of it, because checked with our counsel and we can.
- McKnight, board members: do you feel that the term minority only applies to a certain skin color, gender or sexual orientation? Please know I as a Muslim of African descent, am considered a minority, so what do you think that makes my 7 & 10 yo whose mother is Southeast Asian and dark skinned? The fact is, Muslims, along with people of the Jewish faith, have become the highest target of hate crimes in the past couple of decades, but especially since the bursting of Trump onto the political scene. MoCo has not been spared. Are their rights not important enough in your eyes? You are consistently hearing from people of different religious beliefs, regardless of their political affiliation, that your actions are making them and/or their children so distressed that they are considering leaving the school system altogether. How is that a positive outcome in your minds?
- Indoctrination is “the process of repeating an idea or belief to someone until they accept it without criticism or question” according to the Cambridge Dictionary According to another: it is “teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically”. IS this not what is happening here? I would love to analyze this with you, especially since we are talking about young children here. Did you know the Greenbriar Elementary School has recently called for the LGBTQ+ books to be taught every day starting June 5th with a full discussion to follow? That is 10 out of the 12 instructional days in this month. Is our $3.2 Billion school system doing so well that this the main focus for the whole last month of school?
- John Lott, in his paper titled “Public Schooling, Indoctrination, and Totalitarianism” dissects the use of public schooling quite well. The interesting part of course in his paper is the correlation between Totalitarianism and indoctrination in public schools. Guess where it was most effective? Elementary schools!
- What are the formative years? 0-8, the first seven maybe? What is one to infer from the targeting of elementary school age children to introduce such highly controversial and divisive material, especially when it comes to those with deeply rooted religious beliefs or moral values? Perhaps not an attempt to indoctrinate or “Dogmatize”, but then I really don’t know what is. As MCPS families, faith leaders or conflict resolution specialists were never consulted prior to the decision being made to retract the Opt-Out option we are requesting to be reinstated.
- When Chaudhry and I met with Dr. Pugh and her colleagues in this building after weeks of us requesting it, she provided us with the reasoning behind your decision to rescind the Opt Out option by stating “as this material started being taught, a few families from the LGBTQ community complained that they were offended and had their feelings hurt when many children started leaving the class rooms…” – So basically, MCPS promotes equity and inclusiveness unless someone has their feelings hurt or is offended. What about the students with deeply rooted religious beliefs that guide their moral values? How do you think their parents “feel” when you deny them the right to not sit through something they fundamentally object to and would confuse their children to say the least?
- Ms. Harris – Dogma, by literal definition is “something that seems to be true”, but is typically used in the context of religion or political systems. When you used this term to refer to the religious beliefs of a child who defied her own nervousness, braving the thought of being retaliated against by her peers, by saying “parroting Dogma learned from her parents”, perhaps the negative connotation of this word when used in controversial discussions escaped your mind, especially when referring to a young child? Surely an attorney by training, an ex educator and children’s advocate such as yourself would not make such a claim about a school age child when pushing back on the opt-out…your push back essentially promotes the very same thing you accused young Dalia of, you the adult figure with power, forcing an ideology onto young pupils, against their parents’ will.
- Ms. Harris – please refer to my 2nd point for the following: Yes I am a Muslim. My religion, Islam is a great one, but not the only one that has strong views on the subject, all Monotheistic religions do. But when you make public comments in person or via social media that could be perceived as derogatory towards a religion, I will assume you know not much about it. So, I have 2 questions for you:
- Have you ever read the Quran, our Holy book, to understand what you are referring to?
- I have hosted you during our BoE candidates forum when you were campaigning, despite some of the tactics used by some on your campaign that my organization disagreed with, in order to understand your platform and give you a fair chance. Why not hosting me and some of our faith leaders to better understand our views and needs?
Esteemed board members, allow me again to say this to you: Pushing for Inclusiveness and Equity for all is greatly needed. Introducing such controversial and sensitive material however at the elementary school level, under the claim of “core curriculum” or in the guise of “literacy texts” when clearly it is not, and without consultation of all stake holders is neither inclusive nor equitable.
I urge you to have a meeting with us -community advocates, faith leaders and parents to understand the deep disconnect we feel and remedy to this situation prior to the start of the new school year.
Sincerely, Hisham M. Garti
