Fairfax County Public School System Provides ‘Opt-Out’ Option for Students on Holocaust Presentation
“A Holocaust survivor is coming to speak to my son’s 7th grade History class on Monday. Wonderful. What’s less than wonderful, though, is the opt-out for this lesson because ‘We understand that all students have different experiences.'”
Teaching about the Holocaust should be a non-negotiable thing in the public education system, not just because it’s important to learn history for history’s sake, but also because students need to learn from the past, which hopefully will ensure the horrible parts of it never happen again.
While Holocaust history is indeed taught in the Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) system, Cooper Middle School has given parents of students the option to opt them out of attending a presentation to be made by a Holocaust survivor on Monday, March 18th on grounds that “We understand that all students have different experiences.”
Adele Scalia, a former attorney who is the wife of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s son, Christopher, posted on Twitter Thursday about an email she received from their son’s school regarding the upcoming presentation:
A Holocaust survivor is coming to speak to my son’s 7th grade History class on Monday. Wonderful. What’s less than wonderful, though, is the opt-out for this lesson because “We understand that all students have different experiences.”
What does that even mean? pic.twitter.com/FEDldcu1hi— Adele Scalia (@AdeleScalia) March 14, 2024
If the email had said “We understand that some students are very sensitive and Mrs. X’s stories may be disturbing and traumatizing to them…” I would have given the benefit of the doubt. But it didn’t and so I am drawing different, less charitable (but more likely) conclusions.
— Adele Scalia (@AdeleScalia) March 15, 2024
Incredibly, when contacted for comment, a spokesperson for the FCPS issued the following statement claiming it was actually done so Jewish students who might have felt uncomfortable sitting through the presentation didn’t have to:
“Some Jewish students have previously expressed discomfort while engaging in dialogue around this visit. For that reason, school leadership makes every effort to partner with families of these students, who are 12 and 13 years old, to keep them informed,” the statement read. “This opt-out allows the family the opportunity to make the best informed decision on behalf of their student.”
That is, however, hard to believe considering not only Fairfax County’s notorious woke history but also because it has become a “hotbed of Muslim extremism” according to The Daily Wire:
Fairfax County contains a hotbed of Muslim extremism. A mosque there, attended by several 9/11 hijackers as well as the Fort Hood terrorist, was presided over by the father of Abrar Omeish, who until this year was a member of the Fairfax County school board. Omeish voted against an FCPS resolution offering a moment of silence for victims of 9/11 and another for victims of October’s Hamas attacks on Israel, said the decisive World War II victor at Iwo Jima was “unfortunate,” and gave a graduation speech encouraging students to “remember your jihad” and reject capitalism.
Jennifer Katz, a founding member of United Against Anti-Semitism and a Jewish parent of two FCPS students, told The Daily Wire that hearing from a Holocaust survivor is supposed to be emotionally difficult, and is part of gaining a full understanding of the tragedy.
After Scalia posted about her experience, others weighed in with similar stories:
My kids’ school does an 8th grade trip to DC every year for the entire grade. They removed the Holocaust Museum from the schedule permanently because….parents complained. 💔
— Stacey E. Burke (@StaceyEBurke) March 15, 2024
Ugh. My kid’s teacher said something like “No genocide is worse than any other genocide” in their discussion of the Holocaust.
— Twice-Killed Catherine ✡️ (@2xKildCatherine) March 14, 2024
Fairfax County allows children to opt out of Holocaust education.
Children cannot opt out of slavery or civil war education in Fairfax.
This is also the same county that announced they will be suspending students for using the wrong pronouns for trans classmates. https://t.co/c58HWWobse
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) March 15, 2024
Others wondered what would happen if there were opt-out options for other types of presentations:
Imagine if the school had a civil rights figure come give a talk and offered to let kids opt-out because the students “have different experience”… https://t.co/DOt8AQUSwG
— AG (@AGHamilton29) March 15, 2024
If you're keeping score at home:
Parents opting out of drag queen story time: bad.
Out of hearing from a Holocaust survivor: "Different experiences"#Priorities https://t.co/1Xfh3Tq2Xd
— Mitch "The Wałęsa Project" Berg 🇺🇸 (@mitchpberg) March 15, 2024
The world has gone crazy. It truly has.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
“A Holocaust survivor is coming to speak…Wonderful. What’s less than wonderful, though, is the opt-out for this lesson because “We understand that all students have different experiences.”
What does that even mean?
It means that Muslim parents teach their children to hate Jews.
“Fairfax County contains a hotbed of Muslim extremism. A mosque there, attended by several 9/11 hijackers as well as the Fort Hood terrorist, was presided over by the father of Abrar Omeish, who until this year was a member of the Fairfax County school board.”
Therein lies the problem.
One of life’s constants – find Muslims, find trouble.
It means that this Holocaust presentation might upset the moslems because, “GAZA!!” and given the violent reactions from those moslems if they feel slighted or insulted the school district is kowtowing to the Religion of Peace (or perhaps I should say Pieces) and making the presentation optional.
It would seem that those that want to “opt out” are the ones who need this information the most!
Sweeping *uncomfortable* information under the rug makes for poor decision making, although Muslims don’t mind making poor decisions; they’ve been doing so since the first footprint in the sand.
I agree they should be forced to sit through a history of the Holocaust but of course Leftists want to protect snowflakes from melting if they hear opposing speech.
It seems like a Holocaust industry thing to me, a religious-(group) thing to establish perpetual victimhood. In contrast the Holocaust turns up in history books without the drama, as I encountered it. There was a whole war on that we won, including against the maltreaters. The feeling was that we were the ones doing something about it.
It’s okay when blacks go for perpetual victimhood because they’re not that bright and you sort of give it to them, but Jews are a whole standard deviation above whites and very successful. They can do without it just fine.
Ashkenazi Jews are a standard deviation above whites, there are also Sephardi (Oriental) Jews who fall about half way between Ashkenazi and whites.
Ashkenazi Jews ARE white.
Judaism is a religion, not a race –and the few thousand years that religion has been around has not magically created a separate ‘Jewish’ race.
Imagine it’s 1944 and after a long ride in a boxcar to some remote location in Poland you jump out and are immediately met by Nazi soldiers who are acting in a way that triggers your delicate sensibilities. When the stern looking officer points to the direction he wants you to go, you reply “I want to opt out, thank you.”
I imagine that demand would be met with a bullet to the head.
People (especially on the left) have zero idea how cruel humans can be to one another.
Translation, after being run through the BS-to-English translator:
“The offspring of Muslim supremacists and Islamofascists qre exempted from attending this Holocaust presentation, given that their parents gleefully support Islamic genocidal “holy war” against Jews and are the spiritual predecessors/successors to German Narional Socialists.”
“location in Poland you jump out and are immediately met by Nazi soldiers”
You are no different than those Muslims in FairFax County. You lie just as much, or even better.
The comment is addressed to Peter Moss
What’s the alleged lie? Are you seriously denying that the Nazis shipped Jews to locations in Poland?!
Yes, I deny it. Poland is the designation of the Polish state, and from October 1939 to 1945 the Polish state had no jurisdiction over any “location in Poland”. That’s once. Two are “Nazi Soldiers”. There was never a “Nazi” state, so there were no “Nazi soldiers” either.
“There was never a “Nazi” state, so there were no “Nazi soldiers” either.”
This is so head-poundingly stupid that I have a hard time believing a live human actually posted this.
Do steves59.
Yes? And when was the Nazi state founded? Where were its borders? What nationality are/were its citizens and what language do/did they use? What is/was the currency of this country? What did his national flag look like?
Go ahead, smart guy. Present your knowledge here instead of insults.
Oh, bullshit. There was no state of Poland before WW1, but there was certainly a Poland, and Poles. Were Frederic Chopin, Marie Curie, and Joseph Conrad not all born in Poland because there was no state of Poland at the time?!
The SS were certainly Nazi soldiers.
In reply to Milhouse March 18
You’re clowning as usual. Continue, but without me.
Buh bye. You won’t be missed.
Opt out of a lecture about the holocaust. But try to opt out of condoms on a banana and how to have anal secks. Verboten.
Of course none of them will be given the option to ‘opt out’ of their racist DEI lectures.
ALL of these courses which have overtones of indoctrination should be always be opt-in, not opt-out.
The burden of persuasion should always be on the proponents of the course that taking the course would be in a person’s best interests. That’s freedom.
Six hundred, six million — what’s the difference?
The one subject about which a government school could have a beneficial effect – and it botches even that. There is no justification for the existence of the government school system.
Hell, they’re scared silly to teach it. Because after all — who committed the Holocaust? It wasn’t a multinational corporation, a redneck militia, or Latin-chanting Catholics. Nope — it was a goddamn government, just like the one they work for.
To hell with the civil rights narrative. Opt out of that too. Kid’s got the sniffles that day, whatever works. We’ve heard their lionization of MLK long enough.
If they were truly interested in civil rights rather than equity, they would promote the holocaust lesson too.
Reminder that the opposition party does fuckall to oppose this filth. That’d be untoward to use power. Just ask JR, Danny, fsu and tx about their principles.
What principles?
Probably the two most important things to be learned from a history class:
1 – History is uncomfortable.
2 – People generally suck, and people make history, so history is uncomfortable.
That’s enough for an intro. Leave to the advanced classes:
1 – If someone offers you something comfortable about history — or “people” writ large, really — they’re conning you.
2 – If you’re uncomfortable, you’re probably engaged with some piece of new (to you) truth.
On the uptick, you get to know who is who.
This is truly disturbing but not surprising to me. They allow students in my school district to opt out of discussions about 9/11 because it might offend or unfairly blame certain groups–any guess who those groups are? It ridiculous to stay they are protecting Jewish kids with the opt out, when coming from an all Jewish family I can honestly tell you that kids in our family learn about the Shoah long before their non Jewish friends. I’m guessing many other Jewish families are similar especially if they are attending some kind of Hebrew school after school or go to any type of religious organization for services, holidays etc. After all its hard to be in any sort of Jewish community and not have it come up; I mean we only have a major holiday dedicated to it, for goodness sake. This is about “protecting” Muslim families who don’t want their kids learning about the Holocaust or anything Jewish. Could you imaging the outrage if some white kids wanted to opt out of history lessons about slavery because they come from families that owned slaves pre Civil war. Or the Turkish kids refused lessons on the Armenian genocide because it offends them. This is only acceptable because it’s Jews and we don’t matter since our numbers are minuscule. If you can’t opt out of sex education, gender identity training, DEI etc. etc. there needs to be no opt outs for anything else, especially things that are historical facts.