Where There’s Smoke…
Only one month into 2022, there is Fire. Stay with us because it was a hell of a week and a half. We’ll keep it tight: (1) the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) backtracks on its own representation of accreditation; (2) Independent X School tries to never let a good crisis go to waste after exposed policies; (3) million$ in PPP $$$ give the presumption of financial shenanigans in Independent X School; and (4) your morning lowlights of pedophilic grooming.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
NAIS is like our seven-year-old who claims he never hit his little sister because the stuffie he’s holding hit his sister – not him, forcing us to explain exasperatedly that he hit his sister because he was wielding the stuffie that hit his sister. So whines NAIS. In response to the spotlight Undercover Mother has been shining on NAIS, NAIS has been scrubbing its website, deleting webpages, and publishing articles like the above backtracking on previous positions. Just like Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Kim’s efforts don’t count because “real communism has never been tried,” NAIS advocates above for the institution of DEI and “belonging” in private schools. All great in theory, but we know from NAIS’ own materials, that’s not the reality. NAIS then claims it “does not accredit schools.”
But who accredits the accreditors? According to NAIS, it’s NAIS!
(The now international NAIS also asserts it “does not mandate that DEI work take a specific form.” Like when we tell our seven-year-old to “stop touching your sister’s face,” and he responds, “I’m not touching her,” as he waives his hand two inches away from her face.)
By all accounts – from NAIS itself, NAIS’ gold medal sponsor and right-hand henchman Carney Sandoe, and Independent X School, NAIS accredits Independent X School and provides all of the criteria, process, organization, and infrastructure for accreditation. Give credit where credit is due!
However, therein lies the problem. Just like the credit agencies of the 2008 financial crisis, when the central agencies tasked with regulating and accrediting institutions rely on those very institutions for their budget, increase in assets, and self-preservation, there is a basic conflict of interest.
Never Let A Good Crisis Manager Go To Waste – The Baby Jane Group
The morning after an intimate 500+ person town hall at Episcopal School of Dallas (ESD), a Federalist article dropped like a stealth fighter into the ocean where ESD’s Latin teacher dreams of throwing 90% of straight white men. As headmaster Dave Baad fielded the fallout from teachers and parents, it sounds like he could have used the new head of HR that ESD is searching for. It’s times like these that DEI Industrial Complex auxiliary groups like The Jane Group swoop in for the big $$$ of crisis management. Perhaps they could have intervened before Baad made ageist ad hominem attacks on author Spencer Lindquist instead of addressing parents’ concerns over curricular systemic racism. Or did The Jane Group, who characterizes parents as “misbehaving” for using social media, engage the help of a paid Gen Z social media alum “influencer” to blast The Federalist and concerned parents? That would be ironic.
What is Independent X School scared of? Concerned parents? Call the police – it’s a dad! Hurry, he’s armed…with a donation check! What does it say when Independent X School would rather pay crisis management consultants with our tuition $$$ to intimidate us rather than have open and transparent discussions with us?
There must be something in the peach pie y’all because meanwhile in the ATL, St. Martin’s Episcopal School expelled a student for her mother’s tweet about the school’s inhumane covid lunch policy. Let’s get this straight – a school that describes itself as a “loving, Christian environment” expelled a child because her mother had the audacity to tweet about a policy lacking in compassion for children?? Wow. WWJD. Thank goodness for Doug Deason holding ESD accountable and calling on others to do the same. (Sidenote: What is going on with Episcopal schools? Are they foolishly attempting to atone their collective white guilt or have they been targeted for elite capture as the ultimate in “white supremacy?”)
Again, what is Independent X School scared of? If Independent X School is scared of one measly factual covid policy tweet, it must be hiding something much more significant. Grab a pitcher of sweet tea because we have a feeling that things are just starting to get hot down South.
Where Have All The PPP Funds Gone?
According to the NYT, LA publics averaged $716K of federal emergency covid funding. NY publics – $386K. DC publics – $189K. Publics could receive CARES $$ but not PPP $$, which $$$ privates could and did scoop up. How much in PPP did privates receive? Sierra Canyon, where Lebron’s son attends – received $3.14M. NY Poly Prep Country Day, with over $114M in the bank – $5.83M. Sidwell Friends, alma mater of Sasha, Malia, and Chelsea – $5.22M. A handful of schools, like Chicago Latin and Brentwood, were rightfully shamed into returning PPP, but the vast majority of privates who received PPP funds kept them. Obviously, the concepts of “equity” and hypocrisy are tantamount and utterly reprehensible. Then there’s the question, what of the funds?
Tuition raised, programmatic reductions, extracurricular cuts, sports and travel cuts, personnel cuts, faculty conference cuts, so many cuts Independent X School forced us to scurry around with catering trays for faculty parties that were wiped out. Record cost cuts mean record profits mean salary raises for heads – just ask David Solomon. Instead, Independent X School is claiming poverty. Where exactly did all those cost savings and PPP $$$ influx go? Did the purported new HVAC components really cost $3M? We know Independent X School is not paying for the weekly covid testing of every single student or the KN95 masks for 5-year-olds. Since Collegiate represented it did not accept any PPP $$$, it has even less reason for funding a 400-page 17-person task force to change its unassuming peg-leg Dutchman mascot and Latin motto. When was the last time Independent X School spent that much effort or $$$ to strengthen the academics?
At least the Dutchman got new legs just in time – the Canadian truckers freedom convoy is spreading to the Netherlands as the Gray Lady tries to catch up to him. Mothertrucker!
Groomer Schools
You’ve seen the pornographic illustrations directed at middle schoolers in the book Gender Queer. In fact, NAIS advocates sexualizing our children much younger. Its annual conferences include seminars on performing school-wide gender audits, implementing “sexuality curriculum” from Pre-Kindergarten, and policies supporting nonbinary elementary aged children. As James Lindsay explains in his podcast New Discourses, this sex ed is intended to groom our children and it’s dangerous - just ask the Florida parents of a 12-year-old girl who tried to hang herself twice after 'months of secret meetings about her gender identity' with her teachers without parental consent.
Just take a look at these NAIS materials: NAIS provides Independent School Health Check surveys about middle schoolers’ attitudes about sexual activity and alcohol use and holds workshops on teaching gender spectrum vocabulary at the elementary level. How about abortions? At NAIS school Nightingale-Bamford – for the bargain price of $56K, your middle school daughters can learn where to get the pill and abortions with Planned Parenthood. Abortion 101 is something we’d expect at Spence – what with Alexis McGill Johnson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood (the federation and the action fund) serving as Spence trustee. Coincidentally, McGill Johnson is also founder of a DEI consulting company, Perception Institute. How convenient.
Shits & Giggles Corner
This past week at search firm Carney Sandoe & Associates’ hiring and diversity conference, where job seekers are taught to toe the DEI line if they want a job in private schools, one speaker desperately claimed, “People are so racist, that they’re scared of, they’re scared of us.” You got us. We’re scared of you, and we just want to date you.
