Wisconsin is the latest state to join a mass exodus of state school boards from the National School Boards Association in the wake of its infamous letter comparing concerned parents to “domestic terrorists.”
The Wisconsin Association of School Boards voted June 10 to sever ties with the NSBA due to issues with its “leadership, governance structure, and transparency.”
The WASB initially pulled out of all activities and participation in NSBA programs in November, but the board’s June 10 vote was a decision to disassociate altogether with the troubled national association. WASB also voiced concerns that its interests were not well-represented at a national level.
Wisconsin’s departure makes a whopping 30 states that have distanced themselves in some way from NSBA’s jaundiced view of concerned parents, with 25 of those states withdrawing membership, participation or dues from the NSBA.
Nebraska joined the list this past week as well. The Nebraska Association of School Boards formally decided to sever its relationship with the NSBA on June 11.
“The lesson here is that organizations and politicians should think twice before messing with parental rights in education,” Corey DeAngelis, the national director of research for the American Federation for Children, told Fox News Digital shortly after the Nebraska pullout.
The WASB, in a letter to its members, criticized the NSBA for needlessly harming school board relationships and inflaming partisan tensions. The statement pointed to the mass exodus, saying, “Those actions caused more than half of the state school board organizations across the nation to distance themselves from the NSBA or drop membership entirely.”
BREAKING: “Wisconsin Association of School Boards voted to not renew its membership in the National School Boards Association for the 2022-23 school year.”
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) June 14, 2022
The Wisconsin vote appears to reflect a state that’s decided enough is enough. Such is the case in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where the three open seats in a recent school board election were all taken by Republican candidates who exposed the existing school board’s habit of ignoring parental concerns, particularly surrounding Critical Race Theory.
The WASB said in its statement that it “would not preclude NSBA membership in the future” and that it was “encouraged by the selection” of new NSBA executive director Dr. John Heim. But WASB also said it is investigating membership in an alternative national association of school board associations or “directly engaging at the national level.”
At bottom, it appears that calling upset parents “domestic terrorists” while colluding with the Biden administration to investigate such parents for possible crimes hasn’t sat well with over half of the states in the Union.