@WTPIRC in the Press

Moms for Liberty and We the People asked DeSantis in 2021 to have Barefoot and Jones, along with Indian River Superintendent David Moore and former School Board member Mara Schiff, removed from office for supporting a mask mandate for K-8 students.

For the record: DeSantis didn’t endorse county commission candidates, but Binford was endorsed by the local We The People group, which has been closely aligned with the Moms.

Rosario has been the darling of Moms for Liberty, We The People of Indian River County and other groups critical of the education establishment…

...Barefoot said, referring to birth of the local Moms For Liberty and We The People groups, both of which fiercely opposed the mandatory masking of students in school.

Local publication Vero Communique wrote an article titled “Jennifer Pippin: “She Spews Hate.”” that took issue with an Opinion piece Moms for Liberty Indian River, Florida Chairman and We the People Indian River Co-Founder Jennifer Pippin had published here on Indian River News.

But Chris Allen, an Indian River mother, said she found plenty in two high school textbooks she reviewed.

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Chris Allen, who is involved with the conservative group Moms for Liberty and was one of 83 volunteers who participated in Florida’s textbook review, identified the joke, the Washington Post noted in a new story about Florida education officials’ explanation for why they rejected 41% of math texts.

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A few responses clearly echoed right-wing talking points about education. For example, one reviewer — conservative activist Chris Allen — bemoaned a high school textbook referencing topics she claimed were “inappropriate for school aged children.” Those topics, Allen wrote, include things like divorce and vaccinations.

Chris Allen, the vice chair for the Indian River chapter of the conservative group Moms for Liberty, is an engineer and the mother of a public school student. And although she has never found anything objectionable in her child’s learning materials, she answered a call from the state Education Department for help with the review process. She found reams of examples of what she considered to be critical race theory — which is forbidden in textbooks.

Conservative activists were involved in the review process. For example, five reviewers read “Thinking Mathematically” from the publisher Pearson, a rejected high school textbook. Only one of the reviewers — Chris Allen, a parent in Indian River County and an activist with the conservative group Moms for Liberty — flagged the book for including critical race theory and social-emotional learning.

“I wish they could’ve seen the information I saw,” Chris Allen told the Herald on Friday, speaking to the possible disparities between her responses and those of other reviewers.

One reviewer, Chris Allen, reviewed Thinking Mathematically, a textbook intended for Grades 9-12, objected to the textbook and noted "many lessons and topics that are inappropriate for school aged children," according to the review. Allen also alleged "this book is agenda driven and biased to the issues the author considers ‘important." (Bids 390-420, page 476).

Chris Allen, an Indian River mother and a member of that county’s Moms for Liberty chapter, found much to dislike. She reviewed high school math textbooks for her county and then for the state, she said in a phone interview last month.

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Chris Allen, in his review of a book for grade levels 9 through 12, said, “based solely on the critical race theory elements, this book should not be considered for adoption.”

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However, the example with the bar graph measuring racial prejudice was the subject of a complaint from Indian River County mom Chris Allen. It came from the book “Thinking Mathematically,” which was published by Savvas Learning Company for a Mathematics for College Liberal Arts course.

At the outset, Moms for Liberty and We the People IRC made a splash, claiming there was pornography in some school library books that should be removed from the shelves.

In a recent press release seen on Moms for Liberty and We the People Indian River County, Pippin was told by Assistant School Superintendent Richard Myhre that the school will only determine the book definitions based on “age-appropriate.”

Jennifer Pippin, Chris and Rick Allen from Moms for Liberty [and We the People Indian River County] join us to talk about CRT and the graphic sexual content in multiple books found in libraries throughout elementary middle and high schools throughout Vero. WTPIRC.com, momsforliberty.org

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See photos of Nikki Fried protest!

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Moms for Liberty, a grassroots organization advocating for more parental rights in schools — and co-founded by former Indian River County School Board member Tiffany Justice — and We the People Indian River County, a Facebook group, also are leading the effort, according to the GoFund Me.

Letter to the editor written by Chris Allen, Vero Beach, who is a co-founder of We The People IRC and vice chair of Moms for Liberty Indian River, FL.

Groups such as We the People IRC, The Freedom Coalition, Defend Florida IRC, Sebastian Warriors and Moms for Liberty support the resolution, she said.

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Several parents have spoken out against the K-5 curriculum published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt of Boston as containing lessons they feel are politically motivated and inappropriate for young children.

“Your order doesn’t matter because there’s no penalty to it,” Chris Allen said. “Whether you renew it or not, I don’t have to wear one, because there’s nothing you can do.”

Chris Allen, of Vero Beach, holds a sign in opposition of the county face mask mandate on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020, as the Indian River County Board of Commissioners discuss ending or extending the mandate.

Opposing the pandemic measures taken by the school district is a group called We The People Indian River County, led by Jennifer Pippin. That group, which at press time had 384 members on Facebook, plans to file a lawsuit against the SDIRC.

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“Maybe the masks don’t work, maybe they do – we could debate this for five more hours,” said Jennifer Pippin, who has two children in district schools. “It should be the parents’ choice, the teachers’ choice, the students’ choice whether they wear masks or not.”

“We know there’s a very vocal element out there that is totally against any mandate,” he [Neville] added.

"Freedom to me is all about choice," said Vero Beach resident Richard Allen. "If you take my choice, you take my freedom."