Glaring Hypocrisy Exposed: Charleston Montessori School At Center Of Lawsuit Has Some Major Explaining To Do!
You Really Can't Make This Stuff Up...
What a ride it has been over the past several weeks for parents all over South Carolina. Local school boards breaking state law, disregarding data in favor of agenda, and trampling all over the rights of literal children. That is not hyperbole, that is the reality of the situation. I can’t even begin to describe the videos and photos and audio recordings that parents have sent us which were taken by both them, and their children in school (or, at least, while attempting to go to school). One of the most common complaints I’ve heard from these parents is that they feel absolutely alone and isolated from the very conservative politicians who created the state law banning schools from implementing mask mandates (See-Proviso 1.108), as the politicians and bureaucrats on the other side are going full force in trampling that law and individual rights.
This is obvious when you look at Governor Henry McMaster’s recent plea asking city police departments not to help schools enforce these unlawful mandates. It reads more like a child’s request to Santa Claus than a demand from our state’s Governor to end their illegal enforcement, and in turn helping schools break the law.
Along with that, various government offices have said they will “stay out of it” and “let the courts handle it.” Due to these developments, some interesting lawsuits have come about. We will talk about one of those here. A major, precedent-setting lawsuit has been filed against Charleston County School District due to one of their schools’ treatment of disabled children, as well as a teacher, Gabby Sloan. This is setting up to be a major line in the sand. Below, we will go over the experience of one of the families in the lawsuit, and how East Cooper Montessori Charter School treated their disabled, 11 year old son. Try and save your anger for the end, and direct it in a positive way after you hear their story.
Let’s set the scene. East Cooper Montessori is a Charter School in Charleston County. You can see their website here. And, like other Charleston area schools, they decided to implement a mask mandate the very day before school began on August 18th, which was a Wednesday. Now, at first glance, this might lead you to believe the teachers or administrators were scared of Covid. Maybe they had spent all summer hiding in their homes, or driving alone in their cars masked up as so many fear induced people have been seen doing. But, at first glance, you would be entirely incorrect.
Not only were these staff members doing little more than virtue signaling while stunting the all-important social and educational development of hundreds of students, but they posted the proof of their hypocrisy all over the school’s own Facebook page! A maskless party which took place less than a week before the decision was made to pretend to care about forcing children to mask “for health” was held by the principal, vice principal, and most of the staff and teachers. And boy, oh boy did they have a WONDERFUL time! face to face…cheek to cheek…arm in arm…not a care in the world. The way life is meant to be lived…Until, that is, the least affected group of people in the world (Children) came into the classrooms, and it was time to put those community college improv classes to full use!
The day school began, a couple of things happened. One, a teacher who refused to wear a mask or abide by a coming vaccine mandate, was suspended and eventually fired. This teacher was present at the maskless party thrown by administrators just a few short days prior to this “pandemic induced decision” and there was seemingly no problem at that point. We recently interviewed Gabby Sloan about her experience and what she decided to do afterwards, You Can Watch That Interview By Clicking Here! (Don't Forget To Give It A 'Rumble'!)
Another group of actions taken by East Cooper Montessori & Charleston County School District is what we will discuss here. A child with learning and physical disabilities was treated as less than second class. He was basically placed in a plexiglass cage and confined to that cage, completely “othered” by the teacher, which led to the same type of treatment from his classmates.
(Side Note: I always find Covid to be so, very considerate…allowing teachers to party without interfering, while still being a “deadly” disease when class is in session, don’t you?)
We will call the 11 year old child “Alex” to protect his identity. Alex is an an 11 year old student, with special needs. According to Alex’s family, “He has Bilateral Radial Aplasia, and was born without thumbs…His arms are short and his wrists turned inward.” He also suffers from “severe ADHD, [and has an] auditory processing disorder and speech impediment.” This makes it difficult for him to understand speech, as well as making him “difficult to understand sometimes.” So, it goes without saying that covering this young boy’s face, and his not being able to see the faces of others as they speak has been extremely detrimental to his development. Therein lies the problem.
On the first day of school, Alex came in with perfectly legitimate medical reasons for being unable to wear a mask. However, the principal of East Cooper Montessori, Jody Swanigan, seemed not to be concerned with his development, and ability to take part in class, so much as following arbitrary and illegal protocols. The same people who, less than a week earlier, were all too eager to get together, breaking every “protocol” that medical bureaucracies have haphazardly created, now decided it best to alienate and isolate a child with legitimate medical disabilities, preventing him from wearing a mask. Don’t forget that, all the while, what the principal and staff were doing was well known to be against South Carolina state law.
Once the family spoke with the principal, making the points against masking their son, the East Cooper Montessori administration came up with an idea: children in this school generally sit together, at a number of round tables. This helps them learn to cooperate, work together, and socialize. It’s a great idea! However, on this, the first day of school, they made a decision to alienate this young boy, Alex, from the other students, in a very public way. They placed him at the back of the room, and surrounded him with plexiglass walls. He was not allowed to get out of his seat, and he was all by himself, as other kids sat at their rounded tables catching up with friends after summer break, meeting new friends, and learning to build relationships. All of this, remember, toward a child who has serious learning and physical disabilities to overcome, not to mention the social hurdles that are hard enough for ANY child.
Now, the evidence for the effectiveness of masking children is scant at best. All throughout Europe, even in countries where some of the most invasive Covid restrictions have been put in place, children in schools are not forced to wear masks. The U.K. for example, and their NIH has decided unequivocally that there is no reason to mask children in school, as they are the safest age group when it comes to this respiratory virus. And in America, we have recently learned that more children have been shot in the singular city of Chicago, IL, than have died with Covid -19 this year. Of course, we all agree that every death is tragic. But the fact remains that logic should trump emotion when it comes to policy decisions. We have also learned from the CDC that upwards of 95% of all Covid hospitalizations were actually wholly, or in major part, due to at least 1 significant co-morbidity. These are not things that should be ignored.
All of this being said, in South Carolina, it is against state law to use state money to enforce mask mandates in schools. And clearly, state employees, such as school principals and teachers, are paid with state funds. This precludes them from being allowed to even SPEAK to a student to tell them to wear a mask. It is cut and dry. And these disturbing anecdotes, like the one you just read about, speak to a larger issue. This is not about health, this is not about safety, and this is not about the children for school districts. It is about control, it is about compliance, and it is about money for them. School policy will NEVER preempt state law, regardless of how badly the school boards and administrators of South Carolina schools wish it could. This should be especially true when the largest and most ardent studies have shown that estimates of Covid Hospitalizations have been overestimated by AT LEAST double!
Discrimination based on medical disability, segregation of children based on arbitrary school board policies, and the disregard of the mental well-being of children by those who the citizenry have entrusted to teach those children has reached a devastating new level. From what we can tell, it will not stop, until people like YOU put a stop to it. We, at The Overton Report, pray that these lawsuits have major effects in how students and parents, as well as teachers who refuse to go along with this damaging agenda, are treated in the near future; we will continue to keep an eye on it, among other issues surrounding these mandates and this corruption. And we will keep you informed on these stories as they continue to develop.
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