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I have been to three local school board meetings in the last two weeks, and I’ll probably attend the one this newsletter is about, which is happening tomorrow (9.11.2025). School has only been in session for about a month, and already, the amount of shenanigans is too damn high.
National shenanigans aren’t any better. In MAGA’s AmeriKKKa, it’s getting harder and harder to keep up. According to the Supreme Church Court, it ISN’T OK to consider race to create a more diverse workforce or college campus, but it IS OK to consider race as a justification to kidnap and murder people.
Got it.
Oh, also, the drawing that 45/47 said he never drew turned up in the 50th birthday book belonging to Jeffrey Epstein, complete with his unmistakable signature. To be fair, the Predator in Chief said that he’s never “draw[n] pictures of women,” and he’s not wrong, because this is clearly a drawing of a child:
But that’s not even the most disturbing page from this book, and there’s no way that anyone can look through it and think that anyone that was in it wasn’t in on it is just lying to themselves, and twisting themselves to protect pedophiles.
Speaking of pedo-protecting cult members, Peoria (PUSD) has a board meeting this week, and President Rooks, is bringing a “No Grooming and Child Protection” policy to the agenda for a first reading. The original policy from the AZ School Risk and Retention Trust Policy Services is titled “Staff/Student Boundaries” but Mrs. Rooks decided to change the title and a few other things to politicize it and (probably) invite more lawsuits to herself and the district, I guess?
Who knows! This is a board and constituency that frequently vote against their own best interests. In fact, I cannot think of a community that works harder against what’s best for them than Peoria. 🫠
Thankfully, a concerned group of parents and families are banding together to advocate for the students, families, and staff in PUSD. If you’re in PUSD, get involved with the Peoria Unified Parent Council (PUPC). This is a group of folks fighting for the Common Good, not against it.
People like Mrs. Rooks use the term “groomer” as a rhetorical weapon to instill fear and conjure up danger where it doesn’t necessarily exist. They also use it to target queer people, and to shut down debate. When these “joyful warriors” do this, they end up aiding and abetting real predators who then get away with sex trafficking and abuse.
These useful idiots obediently suit up for the culture wars designed to further a Christian nationalist agenda. They support policies that ultimately hurt themselves and their families to satisfy their own bigotry. They uphold the status quo by distracting people from the very real class warfare taking place against all of us every single day by the billionaire class.
But I digress.
It’s wild to me that the very week that the full Epstein birthday book came out is the week that PUSD will discuss a policy implying that most, if not all, public school educators are groomers incapable of protecting children.
Additionally, in a podcast earlier this week, she doubled down on her beliefs.
This podcast started with Mrs. Rooks justifying her crocodile tears at the last meeting, when the board considered canceling various memberships with performing arts organizations because of wOkE. She then asserts without proof (6:45 timestamp) that the Executive Director of the Educational Theatre Association, Dr. Jennifer Katona is a racist without any proof except that the organization values diversity, equity, and inclusion, so that was certainly a choice!
Thankfully she said this on her own time, and not in a PUSD board meeting, so PUSD should be safe from yet another lawsuit because of Mrs. Rooks. But! that won’t protect her from a potential defamation lawsuit from Dr. Katona or the Educational Theatre Association.
Mrs. Rooks and the host of the podcast both seemed to imply that PUSD children are blathering idiots incapable of forming their own opinions and easily duped by “leftist board members.” She also disparages organized labor and spits out the word “union” (11:00) like it’s a dirty word, and singled out a teacher who spoke at the last meeting while getting hella mad about masks and COVID vaccinations for some reason (12:00ish).
Mrs. Rooks stated that only conservative board members care to protect children from pedophiles (19:08), and that educators who are left-leaning or progressive are even less likely to keep themselves or others from abusing children (19:26).
I guess she doesn’t know that children are most likely to be abused by a parent and then other family members, according to the National Children’s Alliance. I wonder if she knows that 93% of child sexual abusers consider themselves “religious.” And let’s not forget that her colleague, Board Member Bowles, promised on the campaign trail to bring Lifewise religious “Christian” curriculum to PUSD.
Mrs. Rooks’s proposed language would assume that employees of the district are inherently prone to “grooming” but give outside organizations like Lifewise and their representatives carte blanche access to students and only assume the best of intentions from them?
At around the 21:00 mark, she praises law enforcement officers and School Resource Officers (SROs) and argues that they’re more qualified than school staff at keeping children safe. Again, without any evidence or data to back it up.
At about 23:30, the host of the show says that she “read somewhere that one of the most scandalous, sex crime rings in the history known to man is happening right now in America’s public education system.” Again, no evidence was given to back up this sweeping claim.
Also, are these MAGAts for real???
President Rooks did not dispute this evidence-less claim and then shared her support for school vouchers and privatization measures. This makes the third sitting public school governing board member advocating for removing children from public schools in the last few weeks according to my count.
Like, why are they even on public school boards? For some of them, I believe they know that their mission is to destroy their own neighborhood public schools from within, and they simply don’t care because their kids are grown, homeschooled, or they don’t even have kids. For others, they’re just good, obedient, Christian (nationalist) soldiers serving their leaders to help usher in a Christofascist authoritarian regime and by the time it affects their own families, it will be too late. The public schools they once relied on will be gone.
At 28:50, the host asked President Rooks if “LGBTQ people should work closely with students” and Mrs. Rooks replied, “I want to explain this one...as long as you can teach and…keep your bedroom out of the classroom…that is what we’re looking for.” This statement implies her belief that members of the LGBTQ community or those who may even be affirming to the LGBTQ community are inherent sexual deviants and/or exhibitionists. This false equivalency is dangerous AF and Mrs. Rooks should be called out whenever she engages in this dangerous rhetoric. Remember the lawsuit that Mrs. Rooks brought to the district when she targeted a nonbinary teacher?
She went on to say that progressivism promotes immorality 👀(28:14), that Christian teachers should freely share their faith with students (28:21), that sex education (you know, that thing that overwhelmingly keeps kids safer) should be banned in schools (28:24), that America is not a democracy, that lying is never OK (28:10) 👀
and then, she said that bible-reading should be mandated in public schools (28:46).
And there you have it, Secular FAM! Mrs. Rooks ended the podcast by teasing that she is going to share a prepared statement at the board meeting on September 11, 2025 at 6:00. Maybe she’d enjoy hearing ALL of our public statements at that board meeting. The talking points here are endless.
Or maybe you just want to send emails to the board, Superintendent Somers, and the board’s administrative assistant:
There is no shortage of topics to address to this board, so let them know how you feel. Be prepared for a long meeting, folks, since these meetings have been lingering on for six, seven, nine hours. It’s just another example of how poorly this district is being (micro)managed by Rooks.
It’s been a long nine months, and it’s all going to get worse before it gets better. Parents in PUSD have reached out to us to let us know that their children’s schools are losing social workers. A PUSD parent who had moved their child from a school without a social worker just learned that the new school is ALSO losing their social worker, even though the social worker is listed in their child's education plan. This is a dereliction of duties of every board member that voted to approve this change, and they are ignoring the needs of their constituents.
The very people who say they want politics out of the classroom are also disparaging their professional organizations because they disagree with their “politics.” But they mistake best practices for politics because, well, they’re not great at critical thinking. President Rooks doesn’t hide her politics either. Remember earlier this year when she went on and on about going to celebrate the inauguration of that guy who was Jeffrey Epstein's best friend of 15 years?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…every accusation is a confession.
Stay safe out there, Secular FAM.