Dear Neighbor, I recently signed on to a letter to the Governor, along with most of the House Republicans, expressing our concerns about the newly proposed social studies standards. In the letter, we called on the Commissioner of Education to retract the notice of intent to adopt these new standards because of the harmful and hateful language included in the proposed standards. The proposed social studies standards includes references to “settler colonialism” and “anti-colonialism”, similar to the language used by the Democratic Socialists, including the Twin Cities DSA, in their anti-Semitic statements following the horrific, unprovoked attacks on the Israeli people. We can all agree that hate has no place in our schools, and certainly does not belong in our academic standards. We must not even consider the possibility that our state academic standards would not defend and condone the type of violence we have seen in recent days against the State of Israel under the guise of ‘anti-colonialism’ or ‘resistance.’ I continue to call on the Governor and his Education Commissioner to reconsider the controversial and patently harmful and hateful language contained in the new standards. If you'd like to read the letter, click here. Congratulations to Firefighter Vaillancourt! This week I was proud to attend a ceremony where St. Cloud Fire Station 3 firefighter Brad Vaillancourt was presented with a commendation award by Fire Chief Matt Love. We have incredible firefighters here in District 14A, and I enjoyed having an opportunity to celebrate one of the best! |