What Democrats have in store for America 20 Oct 2019, 1:45 am

The Berks County Republican Chairman describing what the Democrats have in store for America.

Another School Shooting! 20 May 2018, 12:45 pm

Another School Shooting! So, What do we do now? Harden the schools!

Sadly, we live in a different society. This is a virtual, desensitized society. A society that has lost it’s way with moral absolutes. A society that looks to situational ethics instead of moral absolutes. This 17 year old killer was interested in violent video games that involved killing people. He was on the varsity football team and was bullied constantly by not just students, but the coaches as well.

Objectively, this is a security issue, not a gun issue. We need to have a reasonable response to school shootings. Everything should be on the table.

The threat in a school shooting occurs the moment a gun begins shooting and ends when another gun stops the shooter, or when the shooter runs out of bullets.

In addition to security cameras, secure entrances and more secure playground areas, many schools have armed school resource officers.

Resource Officers have recently stopped a school shooting at a Maryland high school and at another high school in Dixon Illinois.

Resource Officers also stopped this recent shooting in Santa Fe Texas within seconds of his opening fire on students and faculty. Had resource officers not been on the scene at this shooting in Santa Fe Texas as well as the Maryland and Illinois high schools, the maniacal shooters would have been shooting for minutes not seconds.

I look forward to the upcoming meetings with discussions of how to add protections for our children.

Another part of the problem is how we handle mental illness in our schools.

We understand that there are significant differences between mental illness and minor mental disturbances. There are times when neurosis can effect a child’s decision making ability. Their ability to to know the difference between right and wrong, and to do what is right!

There are many things we can do now and some we can do later. This will not be a one size fits all solution. We need to raise up all the best practices from across the country. Some communities are getting this right. Let’s not forget we must also look at existing process and best practices to ensure we handle existing troubled teens correctly.
The students in school shootings are the victims.

Watch out though: The leftists’ strategy is: Whatever the student comments, whatever they advocate, to make it politically incorrect to criticize them.

They play on our initial perception that the student’s reaction is real, and the statements from these victims are from their hearts; it really has nothing to do with politics. Therefore, we look to loft the opinions and comments of these victims to an unassailable status; above politics.

* Whether they comment and advocate against the NRA, or if they go off against a certain political party or even our President, it is politically incorrect to criticize these victims.

This is patently wrong. This has been made political, and the commentary now is political.

We have some who want to make the NRA and others who support the 2nd amendment rights as the political boogieman. We have people who want to preserve gun free zones at all costs! Logic and common sense has seem to escaped some.

How has politics encroached here? These emotional teens, and the emotions of those in our community are being hijacked by anti 2nd amendment groups on a national level.

We know that there are leftist, activist organizations who want to parlay the emotion of these teens into fomenting division. To distract from the real issue and make this an anti-gun issue.

Education Freedom/ Can this work? 11 Apr 2018, 11:43 pm

Can this work?

Flag Day June 14, 2016; Boyertown School District makes history! 24 Mar 2018, 1:14 pm

Some public schools have no flag, some don’t even say the pledge of allegiance.

Young people need to know the significance of the American Flag. We live in a culture where the American Flag is not automatic, and the Pledge of Allegiance is not automatic.

I brought this concern up at the June 14, 2016 School Board Meeting. I wanted to prevent the above stated problem from occurring in Boyertown Schools. We then made history!
The vote for my motion was unanimous!

* Boyertown became the first School District in Pennsylvania to post the Bill Of Rights at the front of every classroom in all of our school buildings.
* We are also ensuring every classroom has an American Flag that is not just a wall ornament, but an obvious priority and focal point in every classroom.

In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson signed the proclamation officially declaring every June 14th as Flag Day. On June 14th 1937 Pennsylvania became the first state to declare June 14th Flag Day as a state holiday.

To be an American is a privilege and honor; to bear the name of American is to bear the most honorable of national titles; and whoever does not believe this, has no business to bear the name at all. Americanism is a question of spirit, conviction, and purpose. Minimizing American exceptionalism by downsizing our patriotism dislocates the soul and corrodes away the American spirit.

It is not just for today, but for the time to come, perpetuating for our children’s children this great symbol of a free government that we have enjoyed our entire lives.
Ronald Reagan once described comments from a Cuban Refugee;
This Cuban businessman, who had escaped from Castro, was describing his story and a friend of Reagan interrupted and stated “as Americans, we sometimes don’t know how fortunate we are;” The Cuban stopped and said, “How fortunate you are? How about me, I had someplace to escape to.”
If America loses freedom, there’s no place on earth to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.

Both Freedom and Liberty are not automatically passed to the next generation. They are not pre-installed in our hearts, its not like a software program pre-loaded into a new computer. Freedom and Liberty must be added to the programming and learned by each generation.

Calamity avoided in Maryland School 21 Mar 2018, 12:40 pm

Another school shooting:

On Tuesday, March 20, 2018 at Great Mills High School in St. Mary’s County Maryland, we had another school shooting! Austin Wyatt Rollins began shooting at students when an armed resource officer inside Great Mills High School responded to the attack by engaging the attacker with his gun.

The attack ended very quickly with the only fatality being the 17-year old attacker Austin Wyatt Rollins. It is unclear whether the attacker killed himself or was killed by the resource officer. Either way, this attack ended because the armed resource officer was there.

In Boyertown, we need to be focused on a complete security approach.

As with all other “gun free zones” there are always trained people equipped with firearms in place as a deterrent.

“Gun free zones” such as pro-athletic events, celebrity events, and political events, understand that this is a security issue. They all have layers of security and protection. We should be serious enough about protecting our children, to have the protections that exist at these other events.

Objectively, this is a security issue. When we look at all of these gun tragedies at our schools, we can also include San Bernadino, Fort Hood, and the Orlando night club. All of these tragic events, have occurred in gun free zones without trained people equipped with firearms in place.

Sure these maniacs are mentally unstable; they are strangely stable enough however, to know that they do not want to carry out their attack in a place where there will be people to shoot back.

Welcome to the New School Board Director 17 Mar 2018, 2:27 pm

With gratitude for a desire to serve, we welcome Rodney Boyer to the Boyertown School Board. We are grateful and call out to the need to work toward the best for all in our School District. We work toward the ideals of practical friendliness, and bear an appeal to reason and patience. The School Board is comprised of simple, humble folks with a commitment to personal sacrifice and service. We are not great men and women of affairs.

It is not enough for us to do good, but to find ways to collaborate and share. We must leave this school district in better shape then when we got here. Our School Board is trying to find means to this end.

Protecting our children and securing the schools 12 Mar 2018, 12:37 pm

We must not be conflating the tragedy in Florida and school shootings with a constitutional discussion.  

What do we do now?

We need to have a reasonable response to school shootings. Everything should be on the table. There will be many things we can do now and some we can do later. This will not be a one size fits all solution. We need to raise up all the best practices from across the country. Some communities are getting this right.

We have some who want to make the NRA and others who support the 2nd amendment rights as the political boogieman. Folks, the most sacred right we have is the right to live; The second amendment was put in place to protect that right to live. Logic and common sense is something that seems to have escaped many of us.

We have people who want to preserve gun free zones at all costs. 

We cannot have a reasonable conversation on this issue, with people who want to corruptly use this tragedy as a gateway to promote their own personal pathology; These activists want to rip into gun ownership rights.

We know that there are leftist, activist organizations who want to parlay the emotion of these teens into fomenting division. To distract from the real issue and make this an anti-gun issue. These emotional teens, and the emotions of those in our community are being hijacked by leftist-anti 2nd amendment groups on a national level.

We have national leftist organizations supporting the logistics, teaching, training and messaging to corrupt this tragedy into a political advantage.

* They do not care about our country, they don’t care about these kids, or about school shootings;
* They only care about using this tragedy, to recruit new activists to further promote their sham on the public.
* They are looking at using anyone they can as an unwitting participants.

The school shooting has been hijacked by anti-gun, ANTIFA type groups to advance a leftist agenda. Buzzfeed (a leftist outfit) has reported that the following activist groups have their hands in this.

1)Everytown (bankrolled by Bloomberg), 2) Giffords (Gabrielle Giffords) , 3) Move On.org, 4) Planned Parenthood,

5) action network (remember these Marxists? They were meddling in our last election here in Boyertown!!!)

BuzzFeed News has reported they are helping the students with logistics, strategy, messaging and planning for their upcoming protests.

Special Education 26 Jan 2018, 2:20 pm

The past 10 years, we have seen significant increases in Special Education enrollment and associated costs in Boyertown.

We must ensure the services our School District provides, improve where needed and remain an effective partner with parents. Parents strive every day to raise their families. Healthy families result in healthy children and healthy children effectively learn and grow into competent ethical adults.

School Districts like Radnor, Downingtown, Pocono Mountain, Bradford County, Lancaster and Pottsgrove have all made adjustments to special education.

They have all lowered their cost in special education services! What changes did they make? What did these other area school districts do? We need to look into this, learn, and discuss.

We must support children who need special education help! This added assistance can make a world of difference for children. My daughter benefited greatly from special education!

Boyertown School District’s special education enrollment has grown so much over the last 10 years. Our Special Education enrollment has grown to almost 22% of our entire student body. Our costs are way up too.

I want to see the data that shows how this has happened. Our Special Education Program needs to work for our families.

2018 School Year Parental Right To Know! 9 Nov 2017, 1:02 pm

We can and must move forward with fresh purpose as we consider our options and think carefully about the future!
I am amazed, not surprised when I see how dislocated the extremists on the left get, when anyone expresses a majority opinion without using a “Free Speech Zone”!

My Goodness! Parents have the right to know what is going on with their children! I cannot believe that my push for parents rights have triggered so much distain from people.

We have some on this Board and in our community, who do not wish to trust parents with the critical information of their children. The distain to parental rights, proves that there are those who are deliberately attempting to keep parents out of their children’s critical information loop. 

Those with a distorted view of how to support families are now organizing an on-line petition on Facebook to call for my resignation.

We will be having discussion in upcoming School Board meetings on how we can ensure parents know critical information about their children.
A Parent Involvement Policy may be needed. We must ensure that school counselors and school officials report to parents they learn the following of children.

Parents need to know:
* If their children are confused with their sexuality: If their boys want to identify as girls and their girls want to identify as boys.              * If their children are suffering from some sort of eating disorder
* If their children are standing for the pledge of allegiance?
* If their children are depressed and engaged in destructive habits?
* If their children are demonstrating anti-social behavioral habits?
* What is being done about bullying. What action and follow up is being done?
The problem with social media bullying:
* Kids try to outdo each other on social media. many parents are preventing their children from being on social media until they are 18. Kids think differently than mature adults. Look at the recent Laundry Detergent pod eating on social media. Watching the videos are very disturbing and scary. This can be life threatening. Poison Control centers are getting many calls with this issue. These are attention getting teens. The problem is social media has created the social platform for children to get attention and likes from the outside world is losing sight of their inside world, their self esteem. This isn’t good. Kids try to outdo each other on social media..

PAYS Survey 26 Sep 2017, 8:25 pm

PAYS Survey (Pennsylvania Youth Survey)

The School Board is approving your School District to conduct the PAYS Survey.

Administration has clearly stated that there is no correlative or statistical data, NONE, that proves this survey has reduced teen destructive behavior! 

I am opposed to this! Families that disagree with the survey are “pushed through the hoop” and forced to “OPT OUT” their children. 

A sensible “OPT IN” was proposed and defeated 5-4. Unbelievable. This isn’t supporting families! 

2013 PAYS Survey (English) pdf

Does this survey have any academic value? NO! NONE!

Is this survey an anonymous portal into your home and sort of psychological study of your children? Is it intrusive? YES!

Yes it is optional, however, until now, no one has asked about the questions in the survey.  My exposing this to the light of day, will ensure many parents option their children out of this survey. Do not let your children take it!

Your School Board has allowed this survey to be conducted twice in the last 4 years. Even though the questions are accessible on line, no analysis of this survey was done by your School Board in a public meeting.

In past years, your School Board just took the Administration at face value and did not fulfill their duty to you.

Until now!

Below are just a few of the actual questions being asked of your
13 year old girls and boys!

1. During the last 12 months, has anyone on the Internet, ever tried to get you to talk about sex, look at sexual pictures or do something sexual?
2. How often do you and your family attend religious services or activities?
3. How easy would it be for you to get a gun?
4. Do you feel very close to your mother?
5. Do you feel very close to your Father?
6. Do you share your thoughts with your mother or father?
7. Do you enjoy spending time with your mother or father?
8. Do your parents ever tell you your doing a good job?
9. Do your parents ever tell you they are proud of you?
10. Do your parents argue about the same things all the time?
11. Do people in your house often insult or yell at each other?
12. How many times have you skipped a meal because your family didn’t have enough money?
13. Does anyone in your family have a severe drug or alcohol problem?

I support Family Values and Parental rights: I oppose this survey.

* I hold to the truth that the most important institution in our society is the family, the most important job anyone has is being a parent. We must not undermine our families effort to instill their principles and their value sets in their children.

* Parents are trying their best to guard their children, to establish what is off-limits. To establish inhibitions so that children don’t easily run into trouble. This survey will remove and deconstruct these inhibitions. The schools should and must totally support the community and the Family.

We must be careful we don’t sleepwalk into this thing. This conversation may be uncomfortable, but we must have it. It is our moral obligation to get this right.

The survey asks extremely sensitive and probing questions about students attitudes and behaviors concerning drugs both illegal and prescription, alcohol, tobacco, guns, a families faith, the families provided home life, religion, violence and depression. There are also questions about criminal actions, suicide.

Subjecting our children to these inappropriate questions is wrong!

Let’s get back to the business of actually teaching academics and not anonymously conducting profiles of our children!

There are other aspects of this survey, such as identifying student depression. This may seem on the surface, as very valuable:

Administration clearly stated that there is no proof that it helps with anything!

Absolutely no data or evidence, proving that this anonymous survey is an effective and efficient way for the School District to get to the bottom of these issues.

To summarize:

* Many parents simply find these questions being asked of their children inappropriate and having nothing to do with academic outcome.

* If it is inappropriate for a school official or administrator to ask these questions directly of your children, then the questions are inappropriate: PERIOD.

* We are asking highly impressionable children, susceptible to suggestion questions about suicide and other destructive habits. It is the purview of the parents to teach this to their children!

* I commit that we will look closely to see if we have seen a reduction of teen destructive habits in the past 4 years! STAY TUNED!