Editor’s Note: Indian River News is not responsible for the contents of this Editorial. The authors have agreed to assume all responsibility for its’ contents.
Jennifer Pippin:
Masking:
Teri Barenborg voted against the Governor’s Executive Order, health department rule and parental rights law. Here is the school board meeting and timestamp below:
4:20:30 is the illegal vote for Teri. She voted for the tiered mitigation mandate masking a red level with no parental opt out and that was BREAKING THE LAW!
Library Books:
October 27, 2021 we found our first pornographic book in the libraries. It was permanently removed in less than 24 hours by the school district for its graphic sexual content. Myself and Moms For Liberty Indian River, Florida thought this would never happen in Indian River County and we quickly got to work in finding more books. Over the course of October 2021 to February 2022 we found 160 library books containing critical race theory and sexually explicit content. During this 5 month period, the policy and procedures regarding the book review committee were changed three times. Citizens never had due process. Furthermore, the committee reviewing the books was the same librarians and district staff that hadn’t followed policy since 2014 and recommended to put the books on the shelves. February 2022 the school board voted 4-1 to put the sexually explicit contact and CRT books back on the shelves. The only school board member that did not vote for this was Jacqueline Rosario, District 2. Teri Barenborg VOTED TO put the books back on the shelves in the hands of children.
We read these books aloud at school board meetings, and, we sent every school board member and the superintendent every single book we challenged over the course of the five months before they voted. So, even if they didn’t get a chance to read all of the cited material for all of the books, and even if they read three of the cited material per month, they would’ve had a good idea of what was on the shelves for our children. After the vote to put the books back in the hands of children they knowingly were now providing pornography to the children of Indian River County. So, myself and a few other citizens who were involved with this process went to the sheriffs office to file a formal complaint. We told the school district in December 2021, “if these books go back on the shelves we are going to file a police report.” We filed our police report with the Indian River County sheriffs office In the beginning of March 2022.
Teri Barenborg lied when she said I brought the same bag of books to the sheriffs department because I didn’t meet with her until April 5, 2022. The complaint and stack of books were already provided and the case was being investigated when I met with Mrs. Barenborg. So that’s a flat-out false statement.
I asked the sheriff‘s department if they wanted me to check out the books from the school libraries. They told me “no” because the books that I had with the same author, title of book and year of book would suffice. The library system called, “Follett – Parents and Community Members’” does not provide ISBN numbers for all of the books we challenged. Many of the books had multiple ISBN numbers and we provided those to the school district as well with each book citation.
Had the policy and procedure been followed we would’ve met with the library book committee on each book for approximately 15 minutes per book. We were never granted that because, like I previously mentioned, the policy and procedure changed three times throughout this five month process. When I did meet with Teri Barenborg out of good faith, I was hoping that a committee could be developed to fix this issue and get these books off the shelves. I was not hoping for having her slander my name, and, attempt to discredit the hard work that members of the community provided in finding these books. She even said that she had to “check out some of the books from the public library” as they were already checked out to children in the public schools. Based on my own research, I purchased with my own money about 30 of the worst books for both high school and middle school to be able to have for the sheriffs department for their investigation. I also wanted community members to be informed, seeing for themselves that the books were real and to see their descriptive depth of pornographic material. We have made Facebook live videos on our Moms For Liberty public page citing many books and have shared this information in many local grassroots organizations to bring awareness to parents, grandparents and community members.
Teri also condemned the Censuring of School Board Member Brian Barefoot by the Republican Executive Committee in 2021.
Timestamp 2:43
Chris Allen:
Aside from a potty mouth, Mrs. Barenborg also likes to lie to her constituents. Attached is her voting record from the 9/14/21 Business Meeting. She motioned and voted for a “Tiered Mitigation Plan”, aka rainbow chart, that still VIOLATED the governor’s executive order, parental rights, and the Florida DOE rule 64DR21-12 and 64DER21-15. This is substantiated in the letter the school board and superintendent received on 9/23/21, giving them one last chance to comply!
9/14/21 Tiered Mitigation Strategy – https://go.boarddocs.com/fl/ircs/Board.nsf/files/C6UTXK78D37F/$file/Tiered%20Mitigation%20Strategies%20for%20COVID-19_09.14.21.1.pdf
Business Meeting Agenda
Tuesday, September 14, 2021 https://go.boarddocs.com/fl/ircs/Board.nsf/Public
Go to Meetings Tab-Pick 2021 for year-scroll to date
If you like this article, please share it.