Don’t you love election season? Deceit and false promises are in the air, thus We the People Indian River County (WTPIRC) wanted to highlight incumbent school board candidate for district 4, Teri Lee Barenborg.
A few members of the Republican Party received an email from Mrs. Teri Barenborg on June 7, 2022 with the subject “Setting The Record Straight.”⁸ A video version can be seen on her YouTube Channel. The email features her voting record on multiple issues regarding masks, curriculum, and library books from her perspective. Let’s disseminate her recollection of masking and curriculum votes…
Mrs. Barenborg statement about mandatory masking says, “As you will notice in the attachment, I voted along with the Governor’s office every single time there was a mask vote.”⁸ THIS IS A LIE. Only on the first vote to mask children after Executive Order 21-175 did Teri Barenborg go along with Governor DeSantis’s Executive Order. However, during the September 14, 2021 Business Meeting, she motioned and voted for a “Tiered Mitigation Plan” for masking that VIOLATED the governor’s executive order, parental rights, and the Florida DOH rule 64DR21-12 and 64DER21-15 when schools hit the “red” tier (5% positivity rate).⁵ Aside from their common core statistics for calculating colors,⁷ the red tier only allowed for medical reasons/documented disability opt-outs. This violation is substantiated in the letter the school board and superintendent received on September 23, 2021 from Commissioner Corcoran, giving them one last chance to comply with the requirements established by the Department of Health.⁵ The school district had to “foreclose the erroneous [emphasis added] interpretation that the parental opt-out permits a medical-only opt-out,” and a deadline to respond by 5PM on September 24, 2021.
Now let’s look at her recollection of the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) curriculum, in other words, the ELA curriculum selection. Mrs. Barenborg wrote on her email, “There were several concerns about HMH and I was not happy with the material either, so I made a very concentrated effort to speak with Representative Grall, Jacob Olivia, Deputy Chancellor of K-12 Schools for Florida and Commissioner Corcoran’s office...I was told later that my calls did help…”⁸ Several community members formally objected the HMH curriculum on June 18, 2021 to the school district of Indian River County (SDIRC). Aside from HMH publicly supporting an organization with marxist leaders who want to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” aka Black Lives Matter, other examples of inappropriate content were seen throughout the curriculum. For grade K, students were expected to discuss social and political issues ranging from immigration to race relations.⁶ At grade 4, maps are seen without borders with a story containing a racist statement.⁶ Teri Barenborg did NOT attend the hearing and solely relied on the conclusions of the subjective hearing officer who disregarded all the petitioner’s concerns. Does this sound like someone concerned with the HMH curriculum? In fact, on the June 22, 2021 Business Meeting, Mrs. Barenborg called for a motion to approve Amplify if it is approved by FL DOE by July 2, 2021, if not then HMH will be ordered.⁹ Despite speaking to Tallahassee about her disdain and them confirming issues with HMH, she STILL voted for HMH had Amplify not been approved.
A similar situation occurred with the math curriculum selection this year. The school board was emailed Critical Race Theory (CRT) passages found in the Savvas Advanced/Elective curriculum, yet Mrs. Barenborg’s conclusion during the January 24, 2022 Business Meeting was, “…so it’s two books that I’ve heard of the Savvas PreCalculus and the Savvas college book are the only two that have really come up as concerns…” ⁴ Rather than question the advanced/elective math curriculum as a whole for containing CRT, she downplayed WTPIRC’s findings by saying that only two books were of concern. She failed to realize that ALL Savvas Advanced/Elective books were NOT fully reviewed by Chris Allen, our co-founder, as the limited time of the review process only allowed for a small sample of the 12 total Savvas books to be vetted. Fast forward to April 2022, these same passages and photos were posted on the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) website as examples of CRT! Chris Allen's FDOE curriculum reviews were so explosive, that she was featured in many articles from the Miami Herald to the New York Times (see these stories on our Press section)! Mrs. Barenborg relied on the state to tell her what to do rather than listen to her constituents who pleaded to the board to NOT allow the Savvas Advanced/Elective curriculum to be placed as FIRST choice for purchase.
Remember, election year means that politicians want you to forget all their bad policy and voting decisions. If they’re like Teri Barenborg, they expect you to completely forget their actions and remember that it’s never their fault. The reasons above are a few of why WTPIRC endorses Thomas #TK22 Kenny for school board district 4. We need to elect school board members who put Parental Rights as the cornerstone of school policy and will advocate for their constituents. Read more about Thomas Kenny on our Endorsements page and his website.
Please help us continue working for you by donating today! Forward this to friends and family ☺️ #ParentalRights #SDIRC #SchoolBoard #incumbent #candidate #TeriLeeBarenborg #TeriBarenborg #IndianRiverCounty #WTPIRC #WeThePeopleIRC #FL
References
9/14/21 Tiered Mitigation Strategy - https://go.boarddocs.com/fl/ircs/Board.nsf/files/C6UTXK78D37F/$file/Tiered%20Mitigation%20Strategies%20for%20COVID-19_09.14.21.1.pdf
Business Meeting Agenda - Tuesday, September 14, 2021. Go to BoardDocs - Meetings Tab - Pick 2021 for year - scroll to Sep 14, 2021 (Tue). https://go.boarddocs.com/fl/ircs/Board.nsf/Public
Teri Barenborg “Voting Record” YouTube timestamp 1:36 - https://youtu.be/QZVLtvWeYUQ?t=96
Barenborg two books. School Board Business Meeting 1/24/22 https://youtu.be/Y794beAoN9Y?t=6547. Timestamp 1:49:07
Barenborg 91421 vote and reprimand letter.pdf - Download link
6. Condensed HMH Objections.pdf - Download link
7. Tier Mitigation Strategy Analysis
8. Teri Barenborg Email from June 7, 2022
9. Business Meeting Agenda - Tuesday, June 22, 2021. Go to BoardDocs - Meetings Tab - Pick 2021 for year - scroll to Jun 22, 2021 (Tue). https://go.boarddocs.com/fl/ircs/Board.nsf/Public
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