Disruptors have no interest in children

I watched the last meeting of the D211 school board and was shaken by the personal attacks on board members and the amount of disinformation spread by an organized vocal minority in our community regarding masks and vaccines.

Then, just four days after that meeting, a large anti-mask rally featuring several far-right GOP politicians (including Palatine Township elected official Aaron Del Mar) took place inside a local banquet hall. It was promoted and paid for by a group called "Awake Illinois" that is in league with other dark money national right-wing groups that have no interest in public education other than to push their political agenda.

They discount public health concerns with dangerous fringe theories while providing online links on how to create an avalanche of Freedom of Information Act requests that will overwhelm school administrations.

They demean peer-reviewed scientific studies while providing tutorials on how to spread their dangerous disinformation far and wide on social media.

Why?

As Trump supplicant Steve Bannon and others of his ilk have implied, they want to keep their base inflamed and create chaos at the local level. Their goal is to bully and intimidate people of good will and hound them out of office. Then, by means of their deep pockets and inflamed base, they will work to supplant reasoned leadership with their own radical recruits.

It's masks now. But, when that settles down, it will be how history is taught. When that fades away it will be something else.

It's urgent that reasonable people in our district come together to stand firmly against the increasingly dangerous threat to the education and well-being of our students that this bullying, intimidation, and chaos creates. To maintain the high level of education that has been our history in D211 requires nothing less.

Jerry Freda

Inverness