The battle with my child’s school district over unauthorized “social and emotional learning” survey
“Of course, the question is not whether children should be taught social and emotional skills…the question is whether government employees should supplant parents as the primary source of their children’s development of values, attitudes, and beliefs.”
As an attorney who has worked with parents and teachers to fight for their constitutional rights across California and beyond, I have seen my share of offensive and potentially illegal conduct pulled by government employees working at school districts.
But I never thought that kind of behavior would land on my own kitchen table.
Let me back it up to about six weeks ago.
After school one day, my nine year old third-grader bounced into my home office and announced: “I took a social, emotional learning survey from ‘Panorama’ today!”
To say I was concerned would be an understatement.
Fortunate for me (and unfortunate for the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, which contracted with a private company in order to collect the personal data of my child), I have some specific background on this controversial topic.
A quick primer:
While “social, emotional learning” (SEL) has been widely touted as a super fun and effective way for kids to develop social and emotional skills (overseen by your helpful local government bureaucrat, of course), it has also been widely criticized as a means of sneaking politicized content into the classroom.
According to Dr. James Lindsay, “Social Emotional Learning is the psychologizing of schooling, and, as one might expect, it comes in a variety of forms. The most contemporary and relevant form is the most Marxist form.”
Of course, the question is not whether children should be taught social and emotional skills, or whether those skills are crucial to achieving full human development and flourishing. The question is whether government employees should supplant parents as the primary source of their children’s development of values, attitudes, and beliefs.
While we teach our child to respect others’ opinions, and to challenge them when done appropriately and respectfully, we certainly don’t rely on government employees to teach them “proper” opinions. And we certainly don’t rely on them to teach her social and emotional skills.
And while there is room to disagree about SEL generally, there is no such room when it comes specifically to SEL as deployed by Panorama Education, the private company contracted by the government to probe into my child’s social and emotional development, which is, without question, none of their business.
Founded by former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s son-in-law, Xan Tanner, Panorama is widely recognized as producing teaching materials focused on systemic racism, oppression, white supremacy, and intersectionality, all under the seemingly benign rubric of SEL.
According to the Washington Examiner, the multimillion-dollar company’s marketing plan appears to be: get educators to buy in and then show them how to pay for it all with government grants.
“International SEL Day is a perfect opportunity to tell your policymakers that committing to dismantling systems of oppression and advancing equity-centered SEL is important to you,” the Panorama “toolkit” reads. “Reach out to your local, regional, state, and national policymakers.”
The Daily Mail reports that Panorama has run a free online workshop entitled “SEL as Social Justice: Dismantling White Supremacy Within Systems and Self” that included an article entitled “How White Supremacy Lives in Our Schools” among its recommended resources for teachers. The essay identified rallies supporting President Donald Trump as being comparable as symbols of white supremacy to the Ku Klux Klan.
But even if government-administered SEL was the greatest educational innovation since the chalkboard, and even if Panorama is staffed by a bunch of politically objective saints, the government employees working at the District still had no business probing into my child’s personal life.
Federal law, as enforced by the U.S. Department of Education, specifically requires that parents not only be notified before their children are exposed to SEL surveys, but give a chance to review the survey before it is administered, and if they so desire, opt their kids out.
None of this happened in the case of my child.
Had my child not come home and told me what happened, the District would likely have never said a word about it. How many other families, I wondered, would have wanted that information before the fact, as is their legal right?
What followed was a six-week long journey to try to find out just what exactly is going on in the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District when it comes to SEL surveys. And while the ultimate results were satisfactory, the process and context were alarming.
My first stop was the bottom of the institutional totem pole: my child’s teacher.
I began by asking through email whether the kids had really taken an SEL survey (which I still found difficult to believe, given the law requiring prior notice).
Her response was the equivalent of a nod and a digital shrug.
She seems like a nice person (and good teacher), so I didn’t press her. Instead I requested my child be opted out from future SEL surveys (which I legally should have had the option to exercise before she was forced to take one).
The teacher then connected me, via email, with the school social worker, who I was informed is in charge of the school’s “SEL programs.” Not only did I not know that grade schools have social workers on staff, but I had no idea they were in charge of SEL regimes provided via private companies.
I didn’t hear anything back for three days.
It wasn’t until I was forced to send a follow up email that the social worker responded and provided a terse confirmation that my child would be opted out of future SEL surveys at the school. There was no acknowledgement of the lack of notice, no explanation of what had happened, and no apology.
She did not even offer to remove my child’s survey answers from the dataset.
Frustrated at her lack of candor, I replied and asked whether the required notice and opportunity to opt out had been given. Afterall, maybe I was just mistaken and had missed it.
No such luck, and no answer was provided.
Eventually, after several rounds of phone tag, I got the principal on the phone.
After confirming that my child’s private information would not become part of a dataset, I then restated the follow up question from my previous email to the social worker: Had parents received advance notice of the survey before it was administered?
She said, no there hadn’t been, and the line was quiet for a few seconds. Was she waiting for me to explain why I was asking?
So, I asked her why the notice and opportunity hadn’t been provided.
She nonchalantly said the SEL survey “is just something the District does every year.” I then informed her that not only am I an attorney, but that there are federal requirements that they provide advance notice, and failing to do so was a potential violation of those requirements.
She then asked me what specific problems I have with SEL surveys.
Surprised by the question, I informed her that I am not legally required to give specific reasons. Nonetheless, she persisted.
In short, I told her that I don’t think public school teachers, school districts, and especially questionable private companies like Panorama, have any business collecting students’ private information to teach them social and emotional learning skills.
In my view, such guidance is the duty of parents, and any parent failing to teach their kids those skills is deficient in their responsibility.
She thanked me and said she would “elevate the issue” to the District, and I requested an update on steps taken to prevent this kind of potential violation again before we ended the call. I also sent this request shortly again in an email.
What followed was two weeks of silence.
Finally, after several email exchanges I was able to get on a call with a District official.
While the official also like a genuinely nice person, to me his apparent naivete exposes a larger problem with the level of autonomy these government employees claim for themselves when it comes to our children.
After I again expressed my concern with my child being subject to this kind of SEL survey from Panorama, and the apparent lack of notice, the official stated that the District’s position was that the survey my child was forced to take should not be considered a true “SEL” survey because these are “the kinds of questions teachers usually ask students in class, anyway.”
Really? Here are some of the questions the District considers par for the course in a third grade classroom (as shown by a copy of the survey I later received):
- In school, how possible is it for you to change your level of intelligence?
- How carefully did you listen to other people’s points of view?
- How much did you care about other people’s feelings?
- How well did you get along with students who are different from you?
- How clearly were you able to describe your feelings?
- When others disagreed with you, how respectful were you of their views?
- To what extent were you able to stand up for yourself without putting others down?
- To what extent were you able to disagree with others without starting an argument?
- How often did you keep your temper under control?
- How often are you able to pull yourself out of a bad mood?
- How often are you able to control your emotions when you need to?
- Once you get upset, how often can you get yourself to relax?
- When things go wrong for you, how calm are you able to stay?
- Do you have a family member or other adult outside of school who you can count on to help you, no matter what?
These questions were submitted to eight-year-olds…without their parents’ knowledge or permission. Not to mention: what does any of this have to do with reading, writing, or math? Who elected or empowered government employees to probe into our children’s personal, emotional, and psychological lives?
I don’t remember teachers asking me or my classmates if I thought I could change my level or intelligence, control my emotions, or have a supportive adult at home when I was in the third grade. Likely because thirty years ago they knew it was none of their business.
Surprisingly, the District official appeared more concerned with my child telling me the name of the private company, Panorama, that was listed on the survey. He said he planned to ask to have this name removed from future SEL surveys.
Not only did this topic appear beside the point, but I would think the District would be in favor of more transparency, not less. What is there to hide?
He then offered to send me the questions from the survey (after my child had already taken it), and to remove the answers she had provided from their dataset.
I told him I would look at the survey and get back to him about it, but that given the potential violation of federal law, and to avoid the necessity of my filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, the District would need to give me some assurance that the situation was being properly corrected.
Ultimately, I was as shocked as you might have been when finally reviewing some of the SEL survey questions.
This is precisely the reason why the federal notice requirements exist in the first place: to inform families before their kids are subjected to invasive pseudo-psychological probing and give them the opportunity to opt their children out from attempted political or other conditioning.
I told the District official as much in a follow-up email.
Several days later, I was contacted by an attorney representing the District, who informed me they were now apparently doing everything they could to avoid a federal investigation.
The District agreed to scrub not just my daughter’s survey answers, but the entire unauthorized Panorama SEL dataset from across the entire District. I was also assured that going forward they would make sure to comply with federal notice requirements prior to administration of SEL surveys.
But the District’s attorney’s letter didn’t mention notifying parents about what had happened, which was another point I specifically raised with the District official. This was certainly information I would like to have as a parent.
How else are we to practice democratic oversight of public officials without sufficient information? How many other families (likely hundreds) were in the dark about what had happened?
From the teacher to a social worker, to the principal, to a District official, to the District’s attorney…what a ride.
In the end, the only assurance I could get was that the District planned to notify parents at some point in the future before they administer their next Panorama SEL survey.
I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough.
I keep coming back to the question of what would have happened had my child not told me about the survey, or had I not had some legal background on this topic and pressed the issue? Were the officials at the District ignorant of their legal obligations, or given Panorama’s reputation, were they trying to hide the ball? Which is worse?
And when are they planning to actually tell parents what happened? Will there be an apology?
In the end, I have more questions than answers. But I do know this: Our children are not the property of the state to do with as they please. That is especially true when it comes to our kids’ moral development.
I hope the officials at the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District will not only meet their legal obligations going forward but rethink their decision to expose our kids to potential indoctrination through future Panorama Education surveys and programming.
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Comments
Yet another data point in the growing case that the entire “education” (read: indoctrination) establishment in the United States is totally corrupted.
It’s not just the Le Mesa-Spring Valley SD. It’s virtually the entire public school system in the US.
The school systems all over KNOW they’re skirting the law hence the difficulty in acquiring info when asking questions on their teaching methods and requirements.
Just recently, in professor Jacobsons home town of Barrington, RI, a parent wanted info on a teacher’s teaching curriculum and wasinformed that info would cost the parent in excess of $100,000.00.
It’s past time to get your young daughter out of public schools before you lose all control of being her parent.
SEL = DEI in another form. Escalate your complaint to Linda McMahon at the Department of Education. This is a blatant attempt at getting information about the parents. It’s one question away from asking who your parents voted for in the last election.
Did they know that they were violating the law and parent rights?
Of course they did!
It is their job to know.
They knew but they decided to move forward anyway because they expected to get away with it, as they so often do.
They know that the Soros bought-and-paid-for district attorneys will never prosecute.
It would not be a criminal violation so no prosecutors would be involved. It’s important to understand this falls under administrative law and the state can be held liable for violating administrative law. This is why the District’s attorney wanted no federal investigation. The administrative violation would have incurred significant cost to the District, which likely would have included opposing counsel’s legal fees.
This is where the heavy handed consequences must occur. Either they didn’t know in which case they are ignorant and incompetent to hold their positions OR they knew and proceeded with an unlawful action intentionally. In either case those responsible gotta face severe consequences. From classroom teacher, school social worker, vice principal, principal, district staff, the asst superintendent, superintendent. Everyone who failed here must face the consequences of their failure or there won’t be any lesson learned …other than ‘next time, don’t get caught’.
Also, reduce their funding by getting your children OUT of the government school.
Depending up on the school district sure. Lots of smaller rural school districts function very well and without lefty/wokiesta nonsense. Here there’s one Elementary, one Middle and one HS. No private schools. Everyone’s kids go to the same schools so the Parents and the wider community are very invested in keeping the system functioning and warding off wokiesta nonsense. No tranny nonsense around here, no disruptions to learning. Act up in class too often and get referred to ‘alternative school’ at the old middle school campus far away from the kids who show up on time, well rested, eager and ready to learn and behave like civilized people.
You’ve nailed the key component – parental involvement and a felt responsibility for getting it right.
Plus very importantly community involvement of the taxpayers and local employers. Too often we put all the responsibility onto Parents when others pay property tax and hire the graduates. Some even take the position that only Parents of school age children should have a role in their local schools.
Good job, young man! You put the ‘good dad’ in father for doggedly pursuing this issue in defense of your child.
However, I’m a big proponent of the Reagan Method for dealing with Soviets: ‘Trust, but verify.’
“The District agreed to scrub not just my daughter’s survey answers, but the entire unauthorized Panorama SEL dataset from across the entire District.”
What evidence, besides their assurance, did the district provide to you to confirm this is true?
They lied by ommision to circumvent federal law to give the test in the first place. Are we now simply satisfied to apply the transitive property of Gell-Mann to the district’s ‘assurance?’
Trust, but verify.
Any third grader knows that when you mix red, yellow, and blue paint you get brown, not white, and brown is the color SEL is.
his apparent naivete
Because he is likely young enough that she/he/it took them in school, too. They were trained into acquiescence on this sort of stuff. “It never hurt me” is a response you will get about a LOT of things from people asking to collect your child’s data and put it in a gov’t database.
Of course, they can’t see that it DID hurt them – by killing their conscience.
What’s the problem? You don’t really expect government (I will not call them “public”) schools to teach math, English, history etc.? You know, those pesky subjects dominated by white Christian western values?
In school, how possible is it for you to change your level of intelligence?
Given some of the carp you teach, it’s definitely possible to get stupider.
How carefully did you listen to other people’s points of view?
More carefully than you do. With more critical thinking, too.
How much did you care about other people’s feelings?
Not much at all when it comes to facts and truth.
How well did you get along with students who are different from you?
Not very well, at all, since they pick on me all the time and bully me (which you punish me for when I fight back).
How clearly were you able to describe your feelings?
That depends on whether I can use words that Dad would wash my mouth out for.
When others disagreed with you, how respectful were you of their views?
Depends on whether their views were stupid or not.
To what extent were you able to stand up for yourself without putting others down?
Why shouldn’t I put them down if they’re being jerks to me? If you mean in an intellectual argument, pretty dang well, you poser.
To what extent were you able to disagree with others without starting an argument?
If we disagree, then it is, by definition an argument. If you understood language better, you would know that.
How often did you keep your temper under control?
Always when I’m not dealing with preternaturally stupid people.
How often are you able to pull yourself out of a bad mood?
Whenever dad talks about “woodchippers.”
How often are you able to control your emotions when you need to?
Usually. Unless I’m being forced to be psychoanalyzed by ponces and poltroons.
Once you get upset, how often can you get yourself to relax?
Depends on how much my rights have been violated.
When things go wrong for you, how calm are you able to stay?
I’m still using a pencil to answer this survey, right?
Do you have a family member or other adult outside of school who you can count on to help you, no matter what?
Absolutely. That’s why they’re called family. My dad can beat up your dad, so I’m pretty confident.
Just some sample answers (probably from a homeschooled kid).
Another reminder that our government at various levels regards us as subjects not citizens. The parents in La Mesa-Spring Valley need to act in unison. If necessary with a class-action suit. My suggestion: classrooms need a parent or citizen monitor. Someone who acts strictly as an observer, not as any kind of participant. If necessary vet the monitors with a background check. Something like the check one goes through in Texas to get a concealed-carry license. The teachers and administrators will scream in opposition. Let them. it’s obvious that our public education system regards our children as their property. See Hillary Clinton’s book, “It Takes a Village.” Our whole future is a stake.
My children went to private school for grades 7-12. I sat in on some of the classes. The physics, math and chemistry instruction were essentially incompetent because the teachers don’t really understand the subjects. Fortunately for them, My children had me to fill in the gaps. I went over all their work before they turned it in. All very high achievers right through college and professional school.
Georges Clemenceau said: “War is too important a matter to be left to the generals,” Similarly education is too important a matter to be left to the teachers and bureaucrats.
One word:
Homeschool.
There is nothing that is taught in school that you yourself cannot teach your child. There are resources galore available to you from on-line curricula to local study groups.
Do not allow the public schools to poison your children. I wish I knew back when my children were young what I know now. I just feel blessed that my wife and I yanked them out before it was too late.
homeschooling while funding the lefty is just giving lefty, once again, what they want
power over the society
It hits them to the tune of 15-25k per student.
I fought all of this crap with the Olympia School District. My wife was terrible at the home school stuff, and TBH my daughter fell even further behind because a tween girl with raging hormones and her mother locked in a room together ALL DAY is a very bad stew.
We moved. Out of State.
Did they win? I don’t care. The battle was over my child and they no longer have access. I could have stayed in fought, but my kid would be the loser and pawn in that game.
I am in TN. My family is happy. Olympia Washington is still a hell hole. I’m not the unelected self appointed savior of a city who voted for this crap. IMO- ship all your crime and crazy to Olympia. They deserve it.
Also many of the teachers are NOT woke. Many of them don’t abide by the woke rules. Many of the kindergarten teachers in Olympia would put on music and other activities while being forced to read the 57 gender book. Essentially they set up an environment where kids could play with a puppy or listen to music or the 57 gender story. You have to love the artful sabotage in play there.
Even with those pockets of rebellion- there are not words enough to express how much better TN is than Wa in terms of political climate and safety.
“It hits them to the tune of 15-25k per student.”
In the right (red) states. Not in the others.
What makes you think this? Less students means less funding.
seriously glad to hear you fled the garbage
There is nothing that is properly taught in school that…
Fixed it for you. Those things you don’t want taught probably aren’t teachable by the parent – unless they’ve been through the DEI indoctrination centers, too.
why not lead the charge to defund the schools and have parents pay teachers directly thereby eliminating the unions etc
forget homeschooling for so long as you pay the leftists they dont want you there in the first place
Regardless of the money aspect, you need to homeschool your children (or put them in private school) for their sakes, not your pocketbook’s.
you reduce it to money
I reduced it to power
And homeschooling removes your children from their power.
If enough do it, their power evaporates almost completely.
not if they keep collecting the money
you are correct that butts in the seats gets them our money
but nothing will stop them until they are legislated out of our money that is the way to reduce their power
and most many cant/wont homeschool
and the pos still collect our money and laugh at the taxpayers
its going to take that legal insurrection or its too late
Does anyone see my reply to RustyBill at 8:15?
Not as of 10:46 central time.
Hmm…wonder what i said to deserve a no-show.
Thanks for replying
I see it now. The only words I can imagine MIGHT trigger something were Jacobson and Barrington. (So I’m including them here as a probe.)
And it’s definitely one of them. Triggers the super-secret moderation, too.
Or maybe not. There was either a 60-second posting delay or a really prompt de-moderation.
no
How do you know the district did what they said they were going to do? As far as I can tell the kept delaying hoping you’d just go away and then finally told you much of what you wanted to hear about what they would do. However, you have no idea whether they will follow through.
The arrogance and ignorance of the government bureaucracy is staggering and this a local bureaucracy. The socialist worker seemed the worse.
I have a question:
how long have they run this SEL program without notification?
Maybe their first time. I have…doubts.
Does your kid know a fourth-grader? Maybe she could ask them if they took that survey last year,
Some years ago when my son was in elementary school, he brought home a survey that asked such things as was he gay or straight (pre-fluidity), how wealthy were his parents, was there a gun in his house, and other such invasive questions. I wrote an email to his teacher asking how often she had sex, what was her favorite position, has she ever flipped off anyone, etc. After applying my adult coping skills and a dollop of single malt, I erased it and sent her a notice saying that the questions were none of the school’s business and he would not be returning it, I included my phone number, but never got a call.
You know, if districts would focus on subject matter (you know, arithmetic, reading, cursive writing, geography, age APPROPREIATE science, and correct US History), some of these high-paid positions would no longer be needed; teachers SHOULD know the subject matter curriculum and children could get back to learning what they need to succeed in the real world.
From personal experience, regardless of any socio-economic status, teaching content, basics, etc. improves attitude and reduces discipline issues and simply gets kids to work together.
It’s a mistake for a parent to trust the government schools – America’s best example of totalitarian socialism – from the beginning.
I’m surprised that the author was surprised by any of this. Is his child still in that school? If so, he has learned nothing and is allowing his child to be used as a pawn.
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