Radio Recap – ACLJ Take Action for Student’s Rights

Breaking News: The ACLJ is preparing to take its first action on the education and school issues plaguing parents across the nation. You contacted us. We heard you. Now we’re taking action.

On today’s Jay Sekulow Live, we discussed our first actions, on behalf of over 1,400 individual families from 46 states and D.C. that have contacted us regarding the various significant hardships they are experiencing due to school closures.

One specific area of concern has been in Arizona, where we are taking action today. The Governor of Arizona has closed schools, at least through the middle of August. and they are planning to conduct virtual learning.

However, as we told you in one particular Arizona school district, the Gilbert Public Schools system in Maricopa County, parents can still send their kids to one of 9 closed schools for “childcare” during normal classroom hours for an extra fee of approximately $165 a week, per child.

My dad, Jay Sekulow, pointed out the absurdity of what they’re doing to working parents:

Here’s the ridiculous nature of this. You’re paying taxpayer dollars for the schools to operate, which means you drop your child off; they have teachers; they have physical education, art, and music. The school facilities are open. You sometimes pay for the lunch programs. And that’s paid for by your taxpayer dollars. Now the school district decides, and again we’re not questioning their decision as to whether they can open or not, they decide we’re not going to open, but what we’re going to do instead is actually we are going to open, but instead of having teachers so we’re not even spending that money, we’re going to do this: we’re going to charge you to bring your child to the school that [they’re] assigned to that we can’t open for school, but we’re opening it basically for daycare. Which begs the question, then why can’t you open it for school?

When parents are faced with these dilemmas, they need help. And the help they need is something that we can do and are doing first hand at the American Center for Law and Justice. And we are taking [action] today to the school board. It goes today.

We dug even deeper into the Gilbert Public Schools program, and found out they’re not just offering child care. They’re website is literally calling it “class.” There’s going to be a curriculum. There will be scheduled time for arts and crafts, games, and structured online learning time and assistance with coursework. In other words, SCHOOL.

And now some teachers unions across the country are saying not only do their teachers not want to go back to school because they don’t think it’s safe, they reportedly don’t want to teach virtually because they don’t want to spend too much time in front of a computer screen.

As ACLJ Director of Policy Professor Harry Hutchison explained:

Here is where it gets really absurd. Public school teachers, particularly those who are in the American Federation of Teachers unions not only oppose returning to class, but equally clear, they are wary of engaging in online instruction as well. So in essence, we have public school teachers who wish to get paid while depriving students of an education. And keep in mind students have a constitutional right in most states to a free public education. So this whole approach by public school teachers and teachers unions makes no rational sense.

The Arizona school district and superintendent will be receiving our letter today, urging them to either reduce the fee to only reflect the hours which take place before or after normal classroom time, or provide us with a justifiable explanation if they refuse. We’ve asked for a response by this coming Monday, August 3rd, 2020. Hopefully they make the right decision. If not, we will be prepared to take legal action. We must defend the right of every child to an education.

As you know, the ACLJ relies completely on donor support so that we can represent families, like the 1,400 that have contacted us, and give them legal representation that could not otherwise afford, free of charge.

This is a crucial time at the ACLJ. Today is the final day of our July Matching Challenge. Whatever amount you donate to the ACLJ is doubled, dollar-for-dollar. We have a group of donors committed to match your donation and double your impact today. That means that for every $5 you donate, it gets doubled and becomes $10. $10 becomes $20. But our deadline is MIDNIGHT tonight.

The full broadcast is complete with more discussion by our team about the actions we’re preparing to take if necessary to help students and parents, and further analysis of these absurd threats being made by teachers unions.

Watch the full broadcast below.