[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 184 (Wednesday, October 20, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H5684]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    PROTECT PARENTS' RIGHT TO SPEAK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. HARTZLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in solidarity with students, 
parents, and teachers seeking a brighter academic future. From a 
student's earliest days of learning the ABC's, recognizing shapes and 
colors, to the moment they walk across the gymnasium floor to receive a 
high school diploma, their school days have been filled with learning 
and exploring, reading, writing, and math. Or they should be.
  This, however, is not the experience of many of our K-12 students, 
especially not today. For the last 2 years, students, parents, 
teachers, and school administrators have been struggling with the 
global pandemic. COVID-19 has upended routines, hindered learning, 
shuttered schools, and angered families. These are real challenges 
requiring active listening and creative solutions. We need parental 
involvement. We need tutorial advice. We need school board engagement.
  Parents are concerned with their children's education, health, 
safety, and well-being. Parents are concerned with what their children 
are learning, with what is being taught in the school system. Parents 
want to know that when they send their daughter or son to school, their 
children will be safe from bullies and predators. Recently, unfiltered 
frustrations have boiled over at local school board meetings.
  Mr. Speaker, while I do not and will not condone violence, I was 
stunned to hear that part of the Federal response to rising parental 
concern with educational practices and pending school policies was to 
unleash Federal enforcement on vocal moms and dads. This is deeply 
disturbing.
  One particular incident was cited as a catalyst for government's 
heavy-handedness. At the beginning of the summer, pictures of a dad 
tackled to the ground and arrested during a Loudoun County school board 
meeting surfaced. But what is the story behind the headline?
  This dad was protesting a school policy that would allow biological 
males access to girls' private facilities. Why? Because his 15-year-old 
daughter was raped in the girls' bathroom at her school. The situation 
was expertly covered up and ignored by the very people responsible for 
protecting his daughter: the school.
  School officials eventually called the police, not to report a 
serious crime against a young girl, but to restrain a distraught father 
when he discovered the school was attempting to sweep the assault under 
the rug.
  One such horrific rape should be sufficient for every school district 
to review who has access to girls' safe spaces. Instead, this half-told 
story was crafted into a political narrative alleging examples akin to 
domestic terrorism.
  Just a few months after this incident, a national school association 
letter demanded that the Federal Government respond to unrest, name-
calling, and protests at school board meetings across the U.S. The 
arrest of this distressed father whose daughter had been raped was one 
of the examples cited in the correspondence to the President as a need 
for Federal intervention.
  Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice validated the 
concerns raised, not by the father or parent seeking input into their 
child's education, but to the dubious claims raised by the national 
association.
  Instead of adhering to the constitutional charge to oversee Federal 
issues, it disturbs me that the power of the Federal Government is 
being wielded to bludgeon everyday parents into silence. This must end.
  Whether parents voice concerns about a lack of safe spaces for their 
girls, the type of curriculum that is taught at every grade level, or 
mask mandates, parents deserve to be heard, and every American has a 
constitutional right to voice these concerns to the government without 
being treated like a criminal.
  It is time we start listening to parents. They are the best arbiters 
of their child's education, and they deserve respect, not contempt.

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