Lumberton ISD Mother Says Bullying (even by Teachers) at School Needs to Stop Being Ignored (VIDEO)

This mother addressed the Lumberton School Board at the 3/7/2013 meeting. This meeting was attended by many Lumberton parents who wanted to talk about the Muslim Burqa Lesson incident and the District's use of the flawed CSCOPE curriculum.
She was very upset and wanted to tell the School Board what was going on and ask for help and for answers.

I  am not going to comment on this video, I just want to post it here for everyone to see and come to their own conclusions.

Lumberton ISD Reponds to CSCOPE & Muslim Burqa Lesson - Blames Texas, Starr/EOC Tests, School Choice (Video)

Lumberton ISD School Board Meeting 3/7/2013

Superintendent Valastro Responds to Angry Parents who packed the
meeting demanding answers to many questions. Some Parents were
upset that the School uses CSCOPE, which has recently been exposed
as a flawed lesson plan that lacks transparency, was designed by
liberals, and contained pro Islam lessons and lessons that have
students draw a communist flag. Some parents were upset about the
situation in which Lumberton Students put on Muslim Burqas at the
school without being informed that Burqas are oppressive objects that, in some countries, must be worn by women or fact death. Some were not as upset at the Burqa lesson as they were upset about the handing of the Burqa incident
such as no parental notification and bullying by teachers and
students. Others felt that teachers are punished if they speak out when things have happened in the past at Lumberton schools.

Mr. Valastro had a long presentation that put the focus for the
problems, and needing to use CSCOPE, on money hungry testing
corporations, the Texas Legislature, too many testing requirements
and school choice.

I am not going to give my opinion about what was said at the
meeting. I simply want to post the response from Mr. Valastro in a fair
way for everyone to see and come up with your own conclusions.

Paul Begala on Obama: Once a Drug Head Girl Pusher, Always a Drug Head Girl Pusher?

I recently came across an article on The Daily Beast “Paul Begala on Romney: Once a Bully, Always a Bully”

In the article, Paul starts out by saying that “It is a good general principle that we ought not hold teenage wrongdoing against middle-aged people.”

Paul then goes straight into saying it is ok to hold this 40 year old teenage incident against Romney Why? Because as an adult, Mitt Romney was a “bully” when he “cut” education as a governor and because his company laid people off.

Ok Paul, according to your logic, it would be perfectly fine for you to write an article with this as the headline:

“Paul Begala on Obama: Once a Drug Head Girl Pusher, Always a Drug Head Girl Pusher”

This article would start out talking about how you would not normally hold Obama’s ADMITTED teenage drug use against him now that he is a grown man.

You would then of course write an article that says it is ok to hold Obama’s past drug use against him.

Why? Because Obama hasn’t changed. Our border with Mexico is being overtaken by drug cartels. Drug Trafficking and Drug Cartel Violence along the border is shocking, like this massive cartel battle on the Texas/Mexico border or this shootout between Texas law enforcement and several drug cartel members. Yet, Obama has pulled our troops from the border. He even came to Texas and joked about how the border is safe and Republicans will not be happy until there is a moat with alligators. This is very similar to when he joked about doing drugs by saying that he “inhaled frequently … that was the point.” Obama seems to have a pattern of joking about doing drugs and drug related border violence.

You would then go on to say that you would not normally hold it against a grown Obama for admittedly shoving a girl in school, but then you would write about how it is ok to hold this against him. Why? Because Obama still shoves women around. He has recently shoved women in Texas around by defunding a women’s health program simply because Texas decided not to give any of that tax money to abortion mills. So Obama cuts off the entire women’s health service program funding and kicks all the women using that program out on the street all because Obama would rather fund planned Parenthood more than he wants to provide health services to women. And of course, there is Obamacare, which is Obama unconstitutionally pushing all Americans around by making us all purchase health insurance from private companies or face a penalty.

I can’t wait for that article to come out Paul.

Seriously though, how about we talk about the issues affecting us today instead of bringing up 40 year old stories told by Obama campaign workers who used to go to school with Romney. One of the witnesses to this incident now says he did not see or know about the incident and even the brother of this kid who was allegedly bullied says the story is factually incorrect and politically motivated. The guy is not even alive anymore to verify if this happened to him. Really? I guess I am not surprised that this vague 40 year old alleged high school incident is being brought up by the liberal media even though the media ignores Obama’s ADMITTED past drug use. It is all a ploy to distract people from Obama’s unpopularity on many issues. Especially this week when Obama has alienated most of America (especially blacks and Hispanics who oppose gay marriage in constitutional amendment votes) by “coming out” in support of gay marriage (I guess he lied last election when he said he is against gay homosexual marriage).

Gay "It Gets Better" Anti-Bullying Speaker Outed for Bullying Christian KIDS

If Obama and all these liberal groups supporting "It Gets Better" want to really stand up against bullying then they should stand up and tell the world that what Dan Savage did by bullying these Christian KIDS is wrong.

Let me be clear, this following story from Todd Starnes of Fox News about Dan Savage of "It Gets Better" Bullying Christian kids is just another example of persecution and hypocrisy that Christians face in America.

Worldwide now and throughout history, Christians are killed and bullied on a mass scale for believing in Jesus. Bullying because of homosexuality does not even get measured on the same scale as the persecution that Christians face. Soon America will be added to the list of countries where Christians are persecuted simply for believing in something that the liberals do not like.

These liberals with pro homosexual agendas say they are against bullying, unless you are a Christian and then it is ok to bully you.

They do not just want tolerance, they want acceptance and for their actions to be labeled as normal.

They call for everyone to be tolerant of different beliefs (specifically homosexuality), unless you are a Christian and it is ok to be intolerant towards your Christian beliefs.

They call for an end to hate, unless you do not approve of homosexuality, and then is ok to hate you.

They use freedom of speech and expression but turn around and deny that right to Christians.
They glorify thug, criminal football players but demonize Tim Tebow for praying during football games

If Obama and all these liberal groups supporting "It Gets Better" want to really stand up against bullying then they should stand up and tell the world that what Dan Savage did by bullying these Christian KIDS is wrong.

They won't though. Because that's the road America is headed down. The road where pastors will be arrested for hate speech simply because they preach the truths of the Bible. The road where Christians will be persecuted by people claiming to be against persecution.

Anti-Bullying Speaker Curses Christian Teens

By Todd Starnes

As many as 100 high school students walked out of a national journalism conference after an anti-bullying speaker began cursing, attacked the Bible and reportedly called those who refused to listen to his rant “pansy asses.”
The speaker was Dan Savage, founder of the “It Gets Better” project, an anti-bullying campaign that has reached more than 40 million viewers with contributors ranging from President Obama to Hollywood stars. Savage also writes a sex advice column called “Savage Love.”
Savage, and his husband, were also guests at the White House for President Obama’s 2011 LGBT Pride Month reception. He was also invited to a White House anti-bullying conference.

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Savage was supposed to be delivering a speech about anti-bullying at the National High School Journalism Conference sponsored by the Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association. But it turned into an episode of Christian-bashing.
Rick Tuttle, the journalism advisor for Sutter Union High School in California, was among several thousand people in the audience. He said they thought the speech was one thing – but it turned into something else.
“I thought this would be about anti-bullying,” Tuttle told Fox news. “It turned into a pointed attack on Christian beliefs.”
Tuttle said a number of his students were offended by Savage’s remarks – and some decided to leave the auditorium.
“It became hostile,” he said. “It felt hostile as we were sitting in the audience – especially towards Christians who espouse beliefs that he was literally taking on.”
Tuttle said the speech was laced with vulgarities and “sexual innuendo not appropriate for this age group.” At one point, he said Savage told the teenagers about how good his partner looked in a speedo.
The conservative website CitizenLink was the first to report about the controversy. They interviewed a 17-year-old girl who was one of students who walked out of the auditorium.
“The first thing he told the audience was, ‘I hope you’re all using birth control,’” she told CitizenLink. “he said there are people using the Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and Romans that being gay is wrong. Right after that, he said we can ignore all the (expletive deleted) in the Bible.”
As the teenagers were walking out, Tuttle said that Savage heckled them and called them “pansy asses.”

The executive director of the National Scholastic Press Association provided Fox News with joint statement from the Journalism Education Association that was sent to members – after a number of people complained about Savage’s remarks.
“We appreciate the level of thoughtfulness and deliberation regarding Dan Savage’s keynote address,” the NSPA wrote. “some audience members who felt hurt by his words and tone decided to leave in the middle of his speech, and to this, we want to make our point very clear: While as a journalist it’s important to be able to listen to speech that offends you, these students and advisers had simply reached their tolerance level for what they were willing to hear.”
The NSPA said they did not have a prior transcript of Savage’s speech and that wish “he had stayed more on target for the audience of teen journalists.” They also said it provided a “teachable moment” for students.
As for Savage’s attack on people of faith?
“While some of his earlier comments were so strongly worded that they shook some of our audience members, it is never the intent of JEA or NSPA to let students get hurt during their time at our conventions,” they wrote.
However, not once did the NSPA or the JEA offer any apologies to the students or faculty advisors or anyone else in attendance.
Candi Cushman, who writes a blog on CitizenLink, noted the irony.
“Using profanity to deride the bible – and then mocking the Christian students after they left the room — is obviously a form of bullying and name-calling,” she wrote. “This illustrates perfectly what we’ve been saying all along: Too many times in the name of ‘tolerance,’ Christian students find their faith being openly mocked and belittled in educational environments.”
Tuttle said that he “felt duped” by the event. “There were Christian schools who went to the conference. To have this happen was disappointing and shocking.”
And for some of his students – they felt like the anti-bullying activist was in fact – the bully.
The NSPA said they should have done a better job preparing schools for what to expect.

read more here: http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/anti-bullying-speaker-curses-mocks-christian-teens.html

New Law Would Require Texas Schools to Do More to Document and Prevent Bullying

UPDATE: For the record, I would be against any national regulations. This is a state level law. I would also be against any requirements to specifically target people who are bullied based on their sexual preference. I believe bullying is bullying and it should not be tolerated no matter what the reason for the bullying. Special treatment of gay bullying (which is only a percentage of all bullying) would open the door to promoting a homosexual agenda. Bullying should be dealt with and not just one type of bullying. There should also be special provisions to allow people to genuinely speak their beliefs against homosexuality. No homosexual deserves to get beat up, but there students should also be able to believe and civilly express their beliefs against that chosen lifestyle. Michigan passed an anti-bullying law recently with a great provision that protects religious beliefs. That section of the Michigan Law reads: (8) This section does not abridge the rights under the First Amendment of the constitution of the United States or under article I of the state constitution of 1963 of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian. This section does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian.

The Texas Senate passed a bill that will require School Boards to develop specific methods for reporting and investigating bullying, including allowing school boards to transfer bullies to another classroom or campus.[1]

This is REAL reform.

No longer will a teacher at Seagoville High School in Dallas, TX be able to watch a kid get beat up by a bully and not even report the bully.[2]

No longer will a Principal at Lumberton ISD be able to tell a concerned parent that there is no bullying in his school and that it is “kids having fun.”[3]

With this new law, these schools will have to document and investigate every potential instance of bullying. Now parents will be informed about what is going on at school. Now schools can transfer bullies away from the kids they are bullying.

No more excuses, no more ineffective and politically correct policies that do nothing to prevent bullying. Now schools will actually have to start DOING something about bullying. A Lumberton High School Principal Mr. Bilberry (the same one who said bullying was “kids having fun”) did a play last year that was completely inappropriate.[4] It contained many vulgarities and sexually explicit jokes that had nothing to do with bullying. Even the principal in the play used vulgar language, as if that has to do with bullying. Mr. Bilberry defended the play because it had an “anti-bullying” theme. First of all, the anti-bullying theme was buried in the vulgar language and talking about putting an online ad up to get laid. Second of all, the play does not do anything to actually investigate, report and prevent bullying. Schools don’t need an inappropriate play to do something about bullying, especially since the play was completely ineffective. Schools need real policy to stop bullying. Not even a couple of days after the play a kid got beat up at the school and, over the last few month, students say bullying in Lumberton ISD has not gone down at all.

This law will force all Texas schools to start doing something real to PREVENT and INVESTIGATE bullying. No more talking the talk. It is time to walk the walk.


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[1] http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Texas-lawmakers-approve-anti-bullying-legislation-1392136.php

[2] http://texasgopvote.com/restore-families/security/shock-video-dallas-teacher-watches-and-does-nothing-bully-attacks-student-002846

[3] http://hardincountyconservatives.blogspot.com/2011/03/sexually-obscene-play-shown-lumberton.html

[4] http://hardincountyconservatives.blogspot.com/2011/03/lumberton-isd-lies-about-obscene-play.html

Second Video Emerges of Teacher Watching Seagoville School Fight – Also Lumberton School Fight Goes Unnoticed

Just yesterday I posted this article[1] about a Seagoville High School teacher watching a kid get beat up right in front of him and not even calling for help. I also pointed out problems with school policy that allows for kids to get beat up without being able to defend themselves.

It gets much worse!

A SECOND video has just surfaced which shows a different fight a couple of weeks ago and the same teacher just stands there and watched the fight and does not even say anything!

Thank you Teacher’s Union for wanting to keep this teacher in Texas Schools so he can allow kids to get beat up and fight each other.

This teacher finally got suspended while the school is reviewing these videos. The problem is that if these videos did not get posted online, and if there was not a public uproar about these videos, then I have a bad feeling that the administration would have never done anything about this teacher.

Lumberton Middle School Fight Last Week. Teachers Do Nothing and Parents have to Call Front Office to Tell School About Fight.

After posting this fight video yesterday, I got a call from a concerned parent right here in my hometown of Lumberton, TX. This parent said that, while she was waiting in line to pick up her child at Lumberton Middle School, she witnessed a huge fist fight break out with several students involved. She said she was waiting for a teacher to come break it up but that never happened. The parent said there were teachers out there and they had to have heard the fight because all the kids were yelling and chanting fight and the fight was enormous and involved several students. After it was clear that no teachers were stepping in, this parent called the front office of Lumberton Middle School and told them about the fight and asked them to break up the fight.

First, I am not accusing any Lumberton Teacher of standing and watching this fight like the teacher at Seagoville High School. I would hope they just were not out there to see it.

BUT…  even if they school did not break up the fight because they did not see it, we now have the issue of WHY DID NO ONE SEE IT. Why were there no teachers supervising the students outside getting picked up after school? How does that make you feel knowing the level of supervision your children are getting when a huge fight like this can go unnoticed until a parent calls the fight in to the front office.

We need to get back to the basics of protecting the children in school and we also need to focus on good teachers. We need to stop all this political correctness of punishing a victim if that victim fights back after getting attacked and we need to stop the unions from making it hard to fire bad teachers like at Seagoville High School in Dallas, Texas.

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[1] http://www.texasgopvote.com/restore-families/security/shock-video-dallas-teacher-watches-and-does-nothing-bully-attacks-student-002846

(Shock Video) Dallas Teacher Watches and does NOTHING as Bully Attacks Student. Texas School Policy Enables Violence and Bullying

               

Fights happen at schools, right? Well this fight is different than your normal school fight story. A Seagoville High School Student (Dallas, TX) gets attacked at school and the teacher just stands there and watches the whole thing. The teacher did nothing! Even if you buy the argument that the teacher did not want to get hurt, the teacher still did not even yell stop or call for help. This teacher even seems to enjoy the attack and just stands there watching until the boy who was attacked walks out of the room. This teacher is a disgrace. Even the granny in this video[1] has the guts to step in to try to break up an assault at McDonalds. It is interesting to note that the guy flipping burgers at this McDonalds was fired for watching and enjoying the fight instead of, I don’t know, calling the police! It is good to know we have a much lower standard of school employees trying to keep students safe in Texas Schools (sarcasm). The guy flipping burgers gets fired but the teacher gets a pat on the back.

Teacher Unions Enable Bullying…. And they even Support Cop Killers

The teacher’s union backs this teacher 100% because, well, that is what unions do. Most of a union sales pitch is centered on the idea that the union will represent you and protect you from the big bad supervisors who want to punish you when you do something wrong. This California teacher’s union is even supporting convicted cop killers for crying out loud![2] And I will be coming out with a story soon about a killer here in Texas who wants to be a police officer and, you guessed it, the union is backing this killer to get a badge.

Texas School Policy Enables Bullying and Assaults at Schools

A big problem in most Texas Schools is that school policy enables bullying, fights and violence. Yep, you heard me right. So how do they enable bullying? It is simple. Many Texas Schools have a policy that automatically and evenly disciplines both students involved in any fight (or assault). This enables bullying and victimizes the victim because the victims of assaults are not allowed to fight back, and if they do try to defend themselves they get the same punishment as the bully who attacked them. This allows for bullies to roam schools and attack students with little or no resistance because the good students do not want to fight back for fear of getting disciplined. But wait, you might say they don’t have to fight back because the teachers are there to protect them from fighting and discipline the student who attacks other students. WRONG! Apparently in Dallas the unions are telling the teachers to just stand by watching and do not even bother calling someone to come stop the fight or discipline the bad guy. The Dallas school system says they are “investigating” but I don’t know what there is to investigate because you have the darn video.

Lumberton ISD Principal Mr. Lynn Bilberry is Prime Example of Schools Enabling Bullying

 I am not just making this stuff up about schools in Texas enabling bullying. I write this based on personal knowledge of kids in my own hometown of Lumberton, TX who got assaulted at school and the principal tried to give the person who was attacked a suspension for trying to defend himself in the attack. And don’t bother reporting bullying to the High School Principal here at Lumberton ISD, Mr. Lynn Bilberry, because this principal told me once, when I reported bullying of a student, that there is no bullying at his school and when kids harass and make fun of other kids it is not bullying and instead it is just “kids having fun”. Principal Bilberry even tried to get a student arrested for attempting to record the verbal assaults of the other students so that there was proof of the bullying to show the principal who does not believe there is bullying at his school.

We need to do a better job of protecting children in schools from bullying. It starts with hiring decent teachers and goes all the way up to changing school policy.

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[1] http://newsone.com/nation/newsonestaff2/mcdonalds-girl-beat-up-seizure/

[2] http://www.theblaze.com/stories/calif-teachers-union-endorses-convicted-cop-killer/