“I want to see parents more involved with the board of education,” said Scarlett Johnson who leads the Mequon-Thiensville parents group and is seeking election to the school board. “And I want to see less ideology in the classroom.”
National School Choice Week is a celebration of parents using publicly funded vouchers to send their children to private schools. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a movement of parents who want more say in directing their child’s public-school education.
When schools went virtual in March 2020, parents became very involved in their children’s education overnight and needed the schools to open up as soon as possible. When Mequon decided to go virtual in the fall of 2020, a group of concerned parents began meeting and held some of the town’s first protests.
Once schools opened in later September 2020, this parent group shifted their attention to curriculum concerns exposed through virtual learning. For instance, in spring 2020, Mequon Thiensville paid $42,000 for Blaquesmith Consulting to bring “The Talk” and “Realizing Our Vision” to the district.