Panorama - October 19, 2021

I attended last night's board meeting and spoke about two topics: the recent book controversy about The Breakaways and the company that SBISD hired to do surveys of our children, Panorama. First, I highlighted to the board the problems I've written about regarding The Breakaways including the inappropriate sexual content and the very troubling "bleed the pigs" messaging. Since I first learned about the issue, I met with a middle school principal and librarian in an attempt to learn what the policies were surrounding books being chosen for our school's libraries. I learned that librarians are pretty powerful- they basically decide. The librarian I spoke with reads School Library Journal, Kirkus, and other review services like Publisher's Weekly. If those (liberal) sources recommend a book, then it will be considered! I argued to the board that the cop killing message alone should be enough to disqualify the book from sitting on our library shelves and that surely the new cool phrase "windows and mirrors" is not a trump card for a book with otherwise terrible messages for our kids. I have encouraged Dr. Blaine and our board to adopt written policies for the criteria for books in our libraries. Perhaps in the past, these were not concerns, but they are now.

Second, I spoke about Panorama. I first heard about Merrick Garland's son-in-law's company from a Forbes magazine article (link below). Several other concerned parents also spoke about this. The article points out that SBISD has spent $196,000 with Panorama, which is the fifth largest amount spent by a school district in Texas. After the article, many parents, including me, started asking our kids if they had taken a Panorama survey. Was I surprised! All of my kids have taken them-- for years. A little digging and talking to other parents made me realize that SBISD has been asking these social and emotional well-being questions of our kids since at least 2017. Here are some questions that I asked tonight and that I will follow up to get the answers to: do they share my child's personal information with Panorama (including identifying information), does Panorama sell or share SBISD information with other companies (since a big investor is Zuckerberg) and what value do these surveys actually bring for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that you and I are paying?

According to Forbes, Panorama supports critical race theory (CRT) and its surveys focus on "social and emotional climate" questions. These survey results then give justification for "new curriculum" in schools such as CRT. I don't know how this affects SBISD or whether Panorama then makes recommendations to our district based on the survey results, but what I do know is that parents should be informed and consent to our children answering these bi-annual surveys.

Trustee Chris Earnest, in another part of the board meeting, asked Dr. Blaine about the Panorama surveys since several parents expressed concern. One friend summed up her response this way, "Panorama is justified because it was used before by other superintendents". She didn't address our privacy concerns or even explain why these surveys are valuable for our schools to pay for.

I sent Dr. Blaine an email after the board meeting asking my questions about both issues. I will keep y'all posted on her responses.

LA

#lawyermom #LNS #sbisdboardmeeting

Panorama Education, Co-Founded by US AG Merrick Garland's Son

Posted on 19 Oct 2021, 15:56 - Category: Facebook Blog