Parents of students who attend Rutherford County Schools (RCS) must agree not to monitor their child’s online classroom sessions.
Officials at all county schools are asking parents to sign forms agreeing not to watch these virtual classes.
The Tennessee Star received a copy of such a form this week.
“RCS strives to present these opportunities in a secure format that protects student privacy to the greatest extent possible, however because these meetings will occur virtually RCS is limited in its ability to fully control certain factors such as non-student observers that may be present in the home of a student participating in the virtual meeting,” according to the form.
“RCS strongly discourages non student observation of online meetings due to the potential of confidential information about a student being revealed.”
The form asks parents for their signature and warns that “violation of this agreement may result in RCS removing my child from the virtual meeting.”
RCS spokesman James Evans addressed the matter in an email to The Star this week.
“We are aware of the concern that has been raised about this distance-learning letter that was sent to parents. The intent was not to prevent parents from being involved with their children during distance learning, but it was intended to protect the academic privacy of other students in the classroom who are visible during certain virtual class sessions,” Evans said.
“We have issued new guidance to principals that parents can assist their children during virtual group lessons with permission of the instructor but should refrain from sharing or recording any information about other students in the classroom.”
Evans did not elaborate.
As reported Friday, 50 miles away, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles said “NO!!!” to Gov. Bill Lee’s Big Brother-style child wellbeing program that plans to send government officials to families’ homes to do welfare checks of children.
The Tennessee Department of Education says it released a toolkit on child wellbeing checks to ensure the needs of children are being met during and after extended periods away from school. It is promoted as protecting children.
The department earmarked $1 million in COVID-19 funds to set up regional overseers to work with districts, which are encouraged to apply. A grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will give funding for eight regional staff members to work across the state.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Allow the children to feel safe sharing their life, fears, concerns, failures and victories with their peers without worrying about their friend’s parents listening in and getting involved. Let school at home be like school on campus. Teachers are trained to deal with anything inappropriate or a danger to their students.
What about when the teachers are the ones teach in inappropriate material?
That’s not your job. Your job is to teach math science English. Nothing else
Well said.
And don’t forget American history
School is not the proper forum for minors to be “sharing their life, fears, concerns, failures and victories” with peers or anyone else. School is supposed to be a place of learning, not group therapy. The fact is that public “education” has long ago been perverted into indoctrination. Parents who learn what these miscreants are up to will certainly withdraw their children and that is the reason for the secrecy. They should lose all funding and shut down for good.
Well said.
Students should NOT be airing personal matters during class. Oh man, whatever happened to schools to deviate so far from Math, Literature, Science, and History? Kids can communicate the personal stuff to their friends on all the social media apps outside of class. Email the teachers.
My kids don’t want to hear about your kid’s fears and victories when they’re trying to learn how to take the derivative of a function. I do feel sorry for all the emotionally leaky children, but their parents need to teach them to put a cork in it during school and save it for the shrink.
What happened to reading, writing, and arithmetic? In what class do students share a lot of personal feelings? We didn’t have any such classes when I was in school.
When adults ask children to keep secrets from parents, it is a sign of an abusive relationship.
It sure isnt a good sign !
Unbelievable, the nervo of the trachers unions that are pushing this .
Spot on.
Both kids went to private school, and the classrooms all had three or chairs for parents to come and observer at any time.
Parents, tell the district to go pound sand.
Okay then…. SIMPLE SOLUTION….
Provide an AUDIO ONLY link into the class sessions for the parents…. this way… parents can be ASSURED that their children are NOT being subjected to liberal indoctrination… and are being taught legitimate history, civic, math, science, sociology.
I bet they won’t do this for the parents…. let’s see.
Waiting….
Anyone with the Zoom meeting ID and password can logon from anywhere. Parents can do this, keep the video off, mute audio. RCS is playing games. Be smarter.
If it can’t be discussed in front of parents it doesn’t need to be talked about in front of other students!
Nope! Not the same when it comes to MY home. Schools reaching too far. Probably have no right to require virtual learning anyway.
Explain to me why school officials WANT TO HIDE their activities from parents. This should be considered an admission of their unfitness to teach or have access to young minds. Under no circumstances would a good parent allow their child to be instructed by such nefarious, untrustworthy, agents of the left, MUCH LESS SIGN SUCH A STATEMENT.
Yeesh, you would think the school officials would realize that this type of request will only force parents to pay MORE attention to what the heck is going on with their kids.
Nows the perfect opportunity for parents to see whats going on, and weigh in.
All parents should abstain from signing. Let the school have to explain the increase in home schooling as their budget gets cut.
An Alternative would be allow the parent to take the online courses at the same time with the same content. Then the parent could decide if it’s ok for them to be teaching the subject to their children. Any variation from the school administration guidelines should be grounds for dismissal. And if the guidelines are political or other offensive subjects then the school board should be dismissed. Far and even punishment for infractions.
Any school system the tells parents not to listen should be a red flag and all parents should listen to every aspect of the failed instruction they are about to spew into the minds of children.
School’s ONLY purpose is to prepare children for adulthood, not push the left’s pinko agenda.
Public education’s main purpose is absolutely to indoctrinate students in the prevailing Marxist ideology, to teach them how to conform their thoughts to it, and to teach them to comply with what they’re being fed by the state, in school. It is not to prepare them for adulthood, and it is not to teach them how to think critically. In fact, critical thinking is out, and critical theory is in, and you better learn about it while there’s still time to slow it down and maybe stop it, before it eats your guts.
Preparing children for adulthood is the the responsibility of parents, ultimately. But most parents have chosen to abdicate that responsibility to the state’s public education system, and the gift of SARS-Cov-19 is that what the state is doing to their kids is starting to come out into the open just a little. Dig deeper people.
Don’t you know that they really can’t change history if kids parents are privy to it. Teacher Unions are already making demands , supporting BLM , and listening to antifa. For Christ sake…they are requiring children to know and understand and accept LGBT .First teacher that told one of my children that gender is a choice would have to hide from that day forward. If that’s your thing…whatever, but a child’s mind is innocent and they do not need to be confused by some liberal teacher that is going to tell Mikey that it’s ok to act like a Michelle. ABSOLUTELY NO GENDERISM school!
Oh my goodness! Read the article. Every year parents have to sign a waiver that says that the school does have permission to take a picture of a child and use it in any publications such as newsletters, or they deny the right. That’s exactly what all of this is about if you would read the article. Other parents don’t have the right to take pictures or videos that include other children without consent. The stance was changed to allow parents to participate, but to promise not to take any pictures or videos because other parents have the right to protect their children’s privacy. Stop this nonsense !
You and I both know the government knows how to word things in their favor. If it was ONLY about photos/videos, then that’s what it would have said.
You must be involved in this to take the board’s side.
This is not to protect the students, this is to permit continuous, unmitigated, anti-white agenda and distorted history, so that parents don’t know what they’re paying for until their kids are in graduate school. Also part of the well publicized Muslim Brotherhood agenda. Who’s kidding whom?
please continue this and let us know what is happening in those schools. it would be see what is happening in those school systems.
…….keep the DEEP STATE out of our U.S.A. SCHOOLS…….. !
Please the article.. Other parents don’t have the right to take pictures or videos that include other children without consent.Every year parents have to sign a waiver that says that the school does have permission to take a picture of a child and use it in any publications such as newsletters, or they deny the right. That’s exactly what all of this is about if you would read the article The stance was changed to allow parents to participate, but to promise not to take any pictures or videos because other parents have the right to protect their children’s privacy. Stop this nonsense !