Extremist groups are turning Utah classrooms into political battlefields. It’s time to push back.

We live in a time when there’s no shortage of things to worry about. As parents, it’s our job to discern between real concerns that require attention and action and imaginary ones dreamed up by people with an agenda. Unfortunately, bad actors are using manufactured rage to demonize teachers and disrupt learning in the classroom.

Anti-education message bills in the Utah Legislature

As you may recall, during the 2022 legislative session, a fringe partisan group called Utah Parents United (UPU) put pressure on legislators and backed unreasonable bills based on imaginary fears that position teachers as enemies. With UPU's backing, legislators put forward extremist bills aimed at teachers and our children's educations.

In the State Senate, Sen. Lincoln Fillmore from South Jordan, Utah, proposed a bill that would have eliminated necessary classroom flexibility by requiring Utah teachers to share all of their teaching curriculum 30 days prior to using it in the classroom.

HB 234, another controversial bill rooted in manufactured outrage, was introduced by Rep. Jordan Teuscher of South Jordan. Teuscher's bill also would have cut at classroom flexibility making it difficult to respond to student needs. It would have required teachers to post their class syllabus and all teaching materials used in the classroom online, publicly, for parents to review and inspect. Any changes to the syllabus or lesson plans would have had to be updated throughout the school year. Teaching curriculum already goes through a transparent approval process in Utah. From UPU's written statements to their members, we can only deduce their actual concern was a misplaced fear over race theory, over the teaching of complete US and Utah histories, and over teaching students about social and emotional learning.

Thankfully, after a petition opposing Rep. Teuscher's bill collected more than 30,000 signatures, he dropped it. Luckily this year, neither bill passed the Utah Legislature.

Extremists are influencing Utah’s education boards

Unfortunately, the Legislature is only one arena where extreme voices are trying to demonize public education and make teachers’ already difficult jobs impossible. For years, fringe groups have tried to hijack state and local school boards, placing extremists in positions of power and using vitriol and intimidation to push anti-public education agendas. Make no mistake, groups like UPU claim to have our kids’ best interests in mind, but their actions reveal a narrow extremist agenda that could be harmful to children, especially those on the margins.

In early September 2022, the Utah State Board of Education passed new rules about parental involvement in material and book reviews. A Salt Lake Tribune article summarized the decision’s impact: “School districts and charter schools must now make the process of selecting specific books and videos, and the process of reviewing complaints about them, ‘transparent and publicly available’ to parents...With the changes, all curriculum committees for schools must include at least one parent who has a child at the school and who is ‘reflective of the school’s community.’

This change ensures that fringe statewide groups - whose views aren’t shared in many local communities - can't tip the scales of a school's curriculum being their own communities. Local control seems reasonable and intuitive, right? Not if you’re part of a fringe group seeking outsized influence. Out of the 15 board members on the Utah State Board of Education, the only board member who voted against this measure was Natalie Cline, a partisan extremist who is supported by UPU.

This change now gives parents the opportunity to get involved in curriculum committees at our schools, which we fully support, without giving undue influence to extreme voices and partisan agendas. At Utah Compassion Coalition, we support parental involvement in their kids’ education. We support teachers, educators, and school staff. We oppose efforts by groups like UPU to heap unnecessary burdens on their backs and to use educators and education as a political wedge issue.

UPU is raising money to influence local elections

Groups like UPU have tried to shout down other voices so only their views can be heard, as evidenced by their hijacking of a Granite School District meeting in 2021. What’s more concerning is UPU has established a political action committee (PAC) to raise money in order to influence local elections.

In politics, money talks. If UPU’s PAC gains access to national partisan groups, they will be able to heap seemingly endless amounts of money at local elections to push their agenda. We can’t give way to groups that weaponize our children and turn classrooms into battlegrounds for political gain. It’s time to push back, for our kids, their teachers, and for keeping extremist politics out of education in our state.

What can Utah parents do to resist extremist influence in our schools?

We need to give our children every opportunity to learn and grow in safe, politics-free environments. When groups like UPU raise the volume and fill their coffers, their minority voices start carrying disproportionate weight in how education policy gets made in Utah and beyond. So, what can we do?

1. Vote for responsible, compassionate candidates: National politics gets a lot of attention, but local elections have the most impact on our daily lives and our children's education. We must get out and vote for reasonable, compassionate candidates and deny office to any candidate supported by groups like UPU. In time, we will be producing voter guides to assist with this effort.

2. Volunteer for curriculum review committees: We need reasonable, compassionate parents like you to step up and volunteer to be on these committees. We need to ensure rational voices are heard, and are involved in our kids’ education. We also need to ensure our communities aren’t represented by extremism.

3. Become a Compassion Coalition volunteer: We’re a grassroots, non-partisan non-profit organization. We’re just parents, like you, not a well-funded fringe partisan organization tie to partisan national agendas. We need your help! Even the smallest contribution of your time and expertise can make a huge difference. It only takes 1 minute to tell us you’d like to help out.