The beginning of 2012 I was asked by my friend in the video, Alisa, if I knew anything about Common Core. I didn't and so I began to research and learn more. As a former teacher I was interested because this was something that I saw impacting education, but my interest was even more perked because I now had children attending the public schools in our valley.
The more I learned the more questions I had and the more concerned I became. We began to ask questions and found out that the majority of our community, including the school board, district leaders, as well as school administrators knew little about the Common Core Initiative. So, we began to research and asked the board if we could do a presentation with some of our concerns.
We were given 15 minutes to present and spent countless hours preparing and researching to try to condense what we had learned. The school board room was filled with standing room only. We had wanted to record our presentation since Alisa's husband was out of town.
Superintendent Shoemaker told us that they strongly discouraged recordings at the school board meeting. I couldn't believe it, so since I have known him for a long time and felt like it was ridiculous to not be able to record ourselves at a public meeting I asked him again. He said, "I am not happy about this and we strongly discourage it."
So, we told Alisa's brother-in-law not to set up the tripod, but to go ahead and record the presentation. I am glad that we did because we have been able to share our message with thousands and have made lots of contacts with like-minded individuals who are also concerned about the loss of educational freedoms in America as well as the loss of local control.
