292: Parents Fighting Back -with Tiffany Justice from Moms For Liberty

All right. And with that joining me here on The Brian Nichols Show She is for moms for liberty Tiffany justice. Welcome to the program. Thank you for having me today, Brian. Absolutely. Tiffany, thank you for joining us here on today's episode of the program. And it's funny how on the show, we've been taking an approach, it seems like everybody, we're going to school, we're talking to people, either we're teaching them about something. So we've had two scientists on the show the past few weeks. And on our Wednesday episodes, now we have you talking specifically about educating our kids. So in that theme, Tiffany, welcome to the program, moms for liberty. I'm Chris Goyzueta, my marketing guy, I got this on my radar. And I started doing some research into to the advocacy that you guys are doing and the focus that you have right now, in terms of helping really number one address the number one issue I see going forward as the education of our kids, especially going into where we are right now as a society, looking at how the schooling system really has. It's at a crossroads, you see parent starting to stand up, and you're one of the ones standing up. So Tiffany. With that being said, let's introduce you to The Brian Nichols Show audience. So what kind of is your path to liberty and what got you so active here in focusing on right now what you're doing moms for liberty.

So we I co founded mumps for liberty with Tina escovitch. this past January. And up until that point, I was a school board member for four years here in Indian River County. My term ended at the end of November. And so I have four kids in public school, I had unpacked a ton of backpacks, when I was on the school board. And Previous to that as well. My oldest is 16, my youngest is nine. And we just Cina I saw behind the education curtain. Tina also has children in public school, she served as a school board member in a neighboring district to me a little bit north of our county. And we both just looked at each other and said, my goodness, we just spent the past, you know, six months watching people's liberties be taken away, sat on school boards watching parents come and express concerns that they were having about their children in school with the distancing and the masking and the curriculum. And we just realized that that we needed to do something with the knowledge that we had gained during serving on school board. And if you if you know bill bennett he has a funny quote he said serving on school board is a lot like being in purgatory. You know, you serve for years, you've learned a ton. And then you want to turn around and help other parents because there are not schools don't make it easy anymore to partner with them.

Yeah, well, my dad was on the school board. I know it was it was tough for him, you know, his experience as well, just because there it is. And you see this too, there are people who do embrace it as a sales guy, the thing I hate the most. And that is the status quo. They embrace the incumbent vendor more often than not because it's comfortable, they you know, they really don't want to go out there and see what is out there. Because then it makes them have to focus on where maybe they're not doing so hot. And you think about how and I even think to where I'm from up in northern New York. And just there's such a strong desire to connect with the the school and the community. And it's gotten to the point almost where you see certain schools where they kind of just exist because of the community aspect. But I mean, are they getting the kids the best education, our kids sticking around? Are they going over the education or taking and taking career paths that are actually finding, you know, real success, I'm seeing a lot of friends who went to school for four year degrees that they're not using, and there are hundreds of 1000s of dollars in debt, and they don't know what to do. So Tiffany, you're talking about moms for liberty? And what's been the main approach? I mean, one of the things we talked about during the show is the problems we see out there offering Liberty based solution. So what are some of those top problems that you're identifying right now.

So right now, mom's for liberty, we have 81 chapters in 26 states. So again, we started in January. And what we know to be true is that the advocacy needs to happen in your own backyard. local politics is where you can make the biggest change, we know that we sat on school board, we know it makes a difference when parents come and interact with their school board and build relationships. So that's what we hope to do with our chapters. chapters. requests come in from around the country and the chapter chairs express a desire in starting a chapter and we help them to do that in a number of different ways. And then we encourage them to engage with local government and to protect and defend their parental rights. So as far as solutions are concerned, that's that's where the solutions are. The solution is an army of moms. My experience on school board taught us and Matina as well, that you can't do it by yourself. Even if you're a conservative school board member, which I was on a fairly liberal board. You need an army of parents behind you supporting you in to make those decisions and to apply pressure to the other board members to do the same. These are our children in these classrooms and we need to reclaim our parental rights. One of the things we like to say Brian is we don't co parent with the Government These are my children my choice.

We don't co parent with the government what I quote that is I like that. Well, let's look at those public schools right? You see your average person right now starting to raise the red flag, they say Hold up. I just saw my kid have to stay home for the past year plus in some circumstances, and now I'm hearing they might have to either a wear a mask when they go back to school or be they might not even go back to school yet what what's happening here? What's this is a Sadie.

Well, I'm gonna say I, you know, I'm thankful to President Biden for coming out today and saying that American public schools need to be open every classroom so I'm going to applaud him for that. And we appreciate that because the the movement by the teachers union and Randi Weingarten coming out and saying, so callously, you know, we hope classrooms will be open, but we, you know, and kind of leaving this, you know, question lingering in the air for parents is completely unfair. We've had enough, we will not take it, we reject that. America's public school classrooms need to be open for business, and they need to be open for parents to come in and see what's being taught. And unfortunately, parents haven't had a seat at the table. And it's time that we demand that seat at the table. And that's what we're doing. And so if it's going to take an army of moms banding together across the country standing up and saying, These are our children, this is the future of America, which we care about, we will no longer be silent. So that's what we're seeing. And we're seeing moms at school boards all around the country standing up and speaking out. And it is amazing. These are smart, focused moms who know what they want the future for their children to look like.

So Tiffany, what are your thoughts because it's run of the show, Cory de Angeles, he's been on a nationwide tour state house by Statehouse raising up awareness in terms of school choice, saying we should be funding students, not institutions. Now I know my libertarian portion of my audience, they're they're red flags going out? Because they're saying, well, Tiffany, we see the the answer to the problem. Let's just get kids out of these public schools. Do you see that maybe as an argument, or or are you maybe on the approach of saying, let's maybe fund students, not institutions like Korea's going or do you see merit in the public schooling system still going forward?

So I have to be honest with you, when you work in public schools, whether it's a teacher or even as a school board member, you kind of fall in love with them sometimes, because the kids are so amazing. And there are so many amazing teachers that care so much. And we have seen I have seen personally, and I have heard so many stories about teachers who have changed children's lives. And so 80% of Americans send their children to public school, whether that's a choice or not, is what I think we need to talk about. And the truth is that school choice seems to be the way forward in order to put pressure on schools to reform and to change and to open up to parents. And so I really feel like, you know, they're making the argument for us. I know, Cory has said that before he holds the union's feet to the fire. And so, you know, we know that a portion of America's families are going to continue to participate in public schools, and we believe in the power of public schools to change lives. So yeah, I mean, you know, is school choice, something that's important that needs to happen? 100% Absolutely. And if we had more school choice, I don't think we will be facing the issues that we are now. So that's something that I think we have to continue to work forward to making that happen. But right now, in the moment, we do have kids and you know, it's like, teachers don't even teachers unions don't even want them in the classrooms. So um, you know, they're not really leaving with us, us with a lot of options. And I have to be honest, and say, another year of this nonsense, parents are not going to have it, I see parents across the country, pulling their children out of school left and right. I just think that that what's going on now, it's just parents will not stand for it, we

will not

know. And I mean, I was the number just so 40% of teachers in New York City, you know, the illustrious red city that it is not getting vaccinated, and their public school teachers and yet they're the ones saying that they can't have kids come back to school because they they might get teacher sick because of all these crazy variants. It's like well, why aren't you getting vaccinated and the truth is And to your point, they don't want to go back to school obviously teachers have unfortunately really gotten comfortable with knowing that they have been deemed essential they will get paid no matter what. And the union's gonna make sure for that, but think about the other other roles that have been out there and I think you're gonna see a lot of people really get disdain towards teachers and this is unfortunate it's an unfortunate outcome because you have a large not necessarily a large allow group will say a public school teachers who are unfortunately being you know, the ones who are going out and they're they're not setting a good example they are staying home. I mean, we had here in Philadelphia teachers are just sitting there their car in the parking lot, that's, that's productive, right. And I think you're starting to see a lot of people start to stand up again, that's my point start to say, timeout, this isn't working. So let's look at those people. And let's address those concerns they have. So what are some of the main things you're hearing in the conversations with people? What are what are the issues that they're bringing to you right now? Tiffany?

I'd like to Well, first, I'd like to address the teacher issue, because I want to be clear and say, Yeah, absolutely. Um, we are, we have some, we have teachers who are members of moms, for everybody, because teachers have kids who go to school. So it is not every teacher that does not want to go back to the classroom. And we just don't believe that what we're hearing from teachers is that it's extremely difficult to stand up against the union to say that they want to come back to classrooms, and I just actually saw a video of some teachers walking out of a school board meeting, and that the teacher, there were people filming these teachers walking out, and they made this symbol like, cut again, across the neck to the to another teacher who had spoken that night at the meeting. So I mean, this stuff is real. These are, you know, people that you consider friends or peers and colleagues, and you're having a difference of opinion. I mean, you know, we and I understood it back in March 13, when when Rhonda Santas closed Florida schools, there was a lot of uncertainty. And it was, you know, it was fair that teachers were scared to go back. But you know, we had an evidence of summer of summer camps that were not masking of different things happening, we saw that it was safe to go back to classrooms. And you know, it's just unacceptable. For the fact you know, we have kids out in Oregon going to school for 14 days, San Francisco, 14 days.

I mean, it's just unacceptable.

We can't allow it to happen. I just, there's nothing else I can really say about that. As far as the other issues we're seeing in classrooms, Virtual Learning opened up a window, right by into parents, we're seeing what was being taught to their kids. And they're hearing it and they're watching it, and they're saying, Wait, what is that? Why are you guys talking about murder? And why? Why are Why is there so much discussion about suicide, or about all these dark, really dangerous issues that were parents were seeing being addressed in like, five year olds curriculum, six year olds coding curriculum, and you know, parents are throwing the flag, this is the boundary, we're redrawing the boundaries. And and some of this stuff just needs to go, we need to get back to teaching reading in America. And if people were with our literacy rates were higher, we wouldn't be seeing the crime that we're seeing right now. And that's something that this country is going to have to address.

So you mentioned bringing the focus back to mobile, you said that earlier. That's the main approach. I think the advocate advocate advocacy in your backyard, I like that quote with that down. So I wholeheartedly agree, we've actually made that one of the main focuses here, that's why we take a really solutions based approach to how we can help bring change to not just the Liberty movement, but also you bringing these Liberty based solutions to the world. So let's maybe look at the going to this, you know, advocacy in your backyard. When you're talking to parents, and they're starting out, they're saying, okay, Tiffany, you you've piqued my interest, because I'm mad. And I now see that you have a solution in place for me to actually take this unfortunate anger that I find myself with and now focus it appropriately with some actual solutions. So what are some actionable steps for parents who are listening right now they say, okay, Tiffany, you've definitely been, you know, piquing my interest, I now identify as one of those angry parents, what would be a next step four, a parent interested in joining moms for liberty,

they can go to our website, that's moms for liberty.org. And you can click on the chapters button, and you can find a chapter near you or submit a request to start a chapter, if there isn't a chapter near you. But for parents, just in general, I say, you know, do you know when your school board meets, do you know who your school board members are? Do you know when those elections are held? Do you know what it takes to run for school board? Just out of curiosity, who represents you went to the school board meetings held? Have you ever looked at the agendas before? You know, the district should be willing to work with you to a certain degree if you have questions about agenda. So you need to begin to build a network. And so, you know, we and we also encourage our chapters to go to other members of the community that have served in elected office, maybe former school board members or other people that are active and to ask for help, because a lot of the members that we have that are joining moms for liberty are completely new to politics. It's not something that they've paid a lot of attention to local politics before. But you know, when national politics feels as as out of control as it does sometimes, like right now, you know, local politics is really where you can make the change. So just really empower moms to you know, trust your instincts, and I hear that a lot. You really should and then trust the fact that you are the expert of your child. And you have the right and the responsibility to ask questions about the education that they are receiving in in your public school classroom or your private school classroom for that matter.

Your let's go back a little bit because you were talking about this earlier. And I want Actually, I wrote this down, I want to circle back to this. So I feel like Jen Sackett, let's circle back. Um, so you mentioned when the, the Virtual Learning opened the window, into what the kids were learning, and you mentioned, you know, some of the darker themes that we're seeing being taught to tinker kids, but I know that there's but also a lot of just like, you know, questionable content across the board beyond even that it's like from from being overtly bias and in politics, to you know, just just blatantly going after kids. And you're seeing, you know, the firsthand, you know, experience a lot of kids experience every single day, that parents really had no perception of what was happening, be it because of just pure apathy, or because they truly didn't have the means to see inside. So I'm curious, what else are you hearing from these parents about things that they were seeing? And is there anything in particular that really you've been seeing across the board? That has been a reoccurring theme there? Yeah, one

of the things that we're seeing is that children that come from biracial families are having issues with some of the way that a curriculum is being taught. And in Williamson County, Tennessee, there was a mom of a second grader who spoke, she's Thai American, and her husband is white, and her son was embarrassed for the fact that he had a white father. And that came out of he's in second grade. And so you can go to our website, our YouTube channel, or go to the Williamson County moms for liberty YouTube channel, and you can hear her testimony, Williamson County, Tennessee, did a CRT 101, or they brought in some speakers and this Mom, I mean, I was bawling when I listened to it, because, you know, she, she says, that we all love our children love each other. And we're, you know, schools are trying to teach our kids to not love each other. And that's really when it boils down to it, where I think a lot of moms feel as far as other issues that are seeping into education that we're seeing, I mean, you know, we can have a really local conversation about specific issues that are happening like that, or we can have high level conversations, I just had a, you know, reporter asked me about the equity framework in Chicago public schools. And it's predicated on the CDC declaration that racism is a public health crisis. So then we see the federal government intervening into state education, Brian, which it has never meant to do, it's not supposed to be as involved in state education as it is. And since 2000, that has really changed. And so you know, just a lot of different issues happening in, in education. And so, as moms are joining us, they're sharing the issues that they're having, and the concerns that they're having with the curriculum that they're seeing for their children, whether it's inappropriate content, or if they feel that it's politically biased in some way, or their children are being called out. My own children have experienced in the classroom being called out, because of my political beliefs, or because of my advocacy. So, um, you know, whether parents are dealing with that, or we're having, you know, some really serious conversations with moms about, you know, who has an influence on your child's education. And to said, that was okay. And so, you know, a lot of the work that we do is, is educating and empowering moms and then trusting them when they see or hear something that they're listening to. And they say, gosh, that just doesn't sit well with me to ask questions about it. And, you know, it's pretty, it's pretty remarkable. But I think Brian, you know, we're all i every day, I'm on Twitter, and I see these just story after story after story of these things. And everything you look at, you're like, No, that can't be true. Is that true? I can't even you know, and it's just echo chamber of outrage constantly. And it's like, when is enough evidence, enough evidence that something is afoot here in American public education, and parents are saying, you know, stop, respect us respect our parental rights, and let us see what you're teaching our kids, we shouldn't have to do a public records request to learn what our children are, to see what our children are learning in classrooms.

I mean, you shouldn't, right, you should, you should be able to go to your parent teacher conference and ask, and they should be of course, I can show you what we're teaching our kids. You have, like, a foil foil request or something, we'll get the information, which is just absolutely insane. But I haven't seen any of the estimates. No, no, hit me with it.

Oh, like $97,000 for emails. I mean, there was 107. I was just, I mean, some of the some of the estimates from districts for public records request and everything's digital now is just, I mean, parents have no recourse and we say parents should have free course. So, you know, if you're a lawyer out there and you want to start championing some parents, you know, it seems to us that A lot of times we're looking to legislators, to governors to other people to help us to navigate through this. But the truth of the matter is that we're going to have to fight some cases in court. courts and, unfortunately, have just not been that friendly to parents and districts have like, millions and millions of dollars in that they spend on lawyers and litigation. There's never a question when you get sued like, Are we going to fight this? It's just you know, when?

Right? Well, and I guess, my, my, my libertarian, and me is just screaming like, we get kids out of public schools that with this, I see the merit of the argument of yesteryear. But I guess like with the advent of the technology, and this is one thing, I always get excited about my day job, I'm a sales executive in the greater telecommunications and cybersecurity world. And to see how quickly technology's advancing, I mean, I look at this little device that we all have called a smartphone, and or Gen Z, that is quite literally the starting off point for baseline technology for them. And then you think of even younger Gen Z, I mean, not only is that the baseline, but now the idea of an online education where we won't be able to give them the in person experience, but to fill in the gaps. At the very least, we can now start to figure out the better ways to tailor that but to I guess the point, you're you're raising earlier about the value of having that in person education, having that one teacher that everybody thinks back to that was just awesome, right, that that made your life all the better. And I guess the argument that I would say is, well, I would dare say that the best teachers will have more of an opportunity now to thrive in an environment where they're not beholden to this very bureaucratic, regimented schooling system. I mean, if we all had $1, for every time we heard a teacher say, I want to teach you this. But here's what the state needs me or wants me to teach you for the test. So I have to teach you Well, I have to teach you for the test. And every time I heard my teacher say that I cringed a little bit because they wanted to teach, they wanted to make sure that you got it and that they can work with every student, but they have this this one standardized test, the state has mandated to say that this is what we consider to be a success. This, this is, you know, you're going to be good test takers. And by that you're going to be good little applicants at the DMV, when you go and you fill out your forms. We see that time and again, as long as you can fill a little bubbles out from the Scantron. That's all they wants to do. Tiffany, I think it's a big conspiracy by now in front of corporated.

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna fight you on some of that, Brian, but here's what I'm gonna say. I'm teaching to the test is bad for kids. But open reign for teachers right now can't be trusted. So, you know, where do you draw the line between the freedom for teachers in classrooms to you know, bring in curriculum, right and teach what they'd like to say? Well, yeah, yes, yes. But I mean, we're talking about freedom for teachers to teach. And, you know, supplemental curriculum is a huge issue in America's public schools until we address supplemental curriculum. So that's not the stuff that the district adopts, right, the core curriculum is what the district a jobs, but supplemental curriculum would be other things that are added to the child's experience to help to differentiate the learning or to, you know, enhance it. Until we address that we are shoveling water with a rake. It is teachers have access to the internet and you and I know you can pull up anything on YouTube, you would be if you if you want to if someone's watching this, you want to see what kind of supplemental curriculum sometimes creeps into your children's classrooms. There's a website called thug notes. They did so they did this Catcher in the Rye Spoofer, or parody or something. And that was in a 10th grade honors English class 15 year olds and it'll just blow you away. So, you know, the principal was notified about that they had no idea it hadn't been approved. But until teachers are held accountable for the other things they're bringing into the classrooms in America, this big talk about you know, the adopted curriculum is is just, you know, it's we're only we are only touching the surface.

Well, Tiffany, unfortunately, sorry to end on that. No, no, we're not gonna end on that. No, I promise because for what we do the show and my audience knows me at this point. They're like, Brian's not gonna let the show and on a sour note, because you're, and here's a sales cycle, right? All the sales people on the show of the audience, they're, they're nodding their head in agreement, because at the end of the sales cycle, you have to do the reality gap. So where we are to where we're going to be with this new advent of, in this case, the solution that you're bringing forward, this is moms for liberty, and this is moms standing up. So let's paint that better future. Where do you see things going forward? Six months, 12 months? There. I say 24 months as we head towards those yo just around the corner of 2022 midterm elections. Tiffany, what are your thoughts here in painting that better future for us?

We'd like to have a chapter in every county across the United States. That's 3000 counties. And when we have chapters in every county are active parents in every county and parents that are sitting on school boards, we will start to see real change in public education and it's not far off. 2022 is around the corner. So if you're watching this, and you think you have the skills to serve on your school board, or it's something you might be interested in, reach out to us and we'll try to help direct you for some candidate training or some some advice to help you but you know, the power is to is with the parents, Brian, we are the many. And we love our children, and we love America, and we're going to do everything we can to defend our parental rights and to you know, write this ship to get America moving in the right direction.

Well, there you go, folks. Tiffany justice. The organization is moms for liberty. We'll include the links in the show notes. With that being said, Tiffany, thank you for joining us on today's episode, The Brian Nichols Show. Thank you, Brian. I had a great time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai