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It’s Time To Demand Cameras In The Classroom

Since the teachers' unions want cameras on every police officer, why would they oppose cameras in the classroom?

This school year my family made the decision to keep my fourth-grader home due to a mask mandate.  I was not comfortable sending my child off to school to wear a mask for six hours a day while being told to not get too close to other children.  So, the independent online study was the only choice to make.  After a year of almost no in-person schooling, we were now entering into the second year of zoom school.

Initially, our district told us the independent study program would revolve around specially designed cameras in the classroom which followed the teacher around so the students at home wouldn’t miss out.  When the school year started that idea was apparently scrapped, because we were assigned to a teacher giving online instruction to the independent study children instead.

During a recent conference with the teacher, it became clear why the plans changed. The teachers complained about the lack of “privacy” with cameras in the classroom and didn’t agree to it.

Being a former lawman, red flags instantly went up. Wait a minute… weren’t teachers the ones promoting social justice and police reform, including body cameras for all police officers?  Why is it good enough for the police but not teachers?

Thinking that I must be wrong, I checked out what the teachers’ unions had to say about it.  It turns out, they are very vocal with their opinion that all police should wear body cameras.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) seem to be very concerned with reforming law enforcement, this is from a resolution in 2020:

WHEREAS, police brutality against Black and brown persons in the U.S. is a manifestation of continual, persistent and pervasive white supremacy; and

WHEREAS, this white supremacy is systemic and institutionalized and influences the lives of everyone living in the U.S., albeit in very different ways; and

WHEREAS, the eradication of this white supremacy is a necessary precondition toward creating a culture of equity and equality and, therefore, must be a primary goal of education:

RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers and its affiliates will work to end police brutality by actively supporting legislation on the federal, state and local levels that:

#7 Requires all police officers to wear functioning and operating body cameras at all times

Since the teachers want cameras on cops, why are they against it in the classroom? This wasn’t the only time the AFT has called for body cameras for police, in 2020 they published the “‘Enough’ Resolution Opposes Police Brutality and Demands Police Accountability”  and in 2021 they published a resolution titled “Against The Use Of Excessive Force and Brutality By Law Enforcement Officers” also calling for body cameras on police officers.

They aren’t the only organization calling for bodycams. The National Education Association (NEA) issued a press release in May of 2021 titled “NEA President Statement on the One-Year Mark of George Floyd’s Murder” in which the NEA president issued a “call to join together to demand justice” and demanded to, “require federal and state police to use body cameras”.

So it’s clear the teachers want cameras on cops, but why not the classroom? And why should we care if they do? Well, because some teachers have been exposed as left-wing radicals attempting to indoctrinate our children. Just in September, the following stories were published here at RedVoiceMedia.com:

This pink and purple-haired teacher took to TikTok to explain how her students deserve to learn about CRT because she is “challenging a broken system”.

“With schools districts around America debating if students should be mandated to wear masks while in class, apparently, one Las Vegas substitute teacher took it upon herself to enforce her own mandate when she supposedly “taped” masks onto fourth-grade children. ”

“According to the union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association wants to do away with the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) as part of the requirements for graduating students. And the reason why –  because the standardized testing ‘allowed white supremacy to flourish.'”

Keep in mind, this is only September, and there were many more examples of crazy teachers we didn’t even publish. In case you were wondering, the NEA is publicly against cameras in the classroom, having published “Cameras in the Classroom: Is Big Brother Evaluating You?” in which they concluded, “Video technology can improve safety and classroom practice, but using it to spy and find ‘bad teachers’ should be a non-starter.”

So let me get this straight, the teachers and teachers union go all-in for body cameras on police in the name of social justice, but consider it “big brother” or spying when it comes to cameras in the classroom.

Full disclosure from me: when body cameras first came onto the scene in law enforcement I advocated against them.  I felt they would not give a complete perspective of what the officer was experiencing during a critical incident and could be used to bring reckless charges against them. I was wrong about this, and it turned out body cameras cleared more complaints and saved more police jobs than I ever thought was possible.

To address the privacy issue, I’m not calling for the public to view cameras in the classroom, just parents with a secure link.  They did it during COVID, and they can do it again.

So what are the teachers hiding from? Shouldn’t parents be able to see what is being said and taught to their children? Why wouldn’t a teacher want a parent to hear what is said to them in school?  Because some teachers think they know better than the evil ‘white supremacist’ parents of their students, and it’s their mission to ‘fix’ the children and shape their thinking, no matter what the parents want.

They must be stopped. Parents should have access to monitor what is being said and taught to their children.

This piece was written by Ray Dietrich on September 26, 2021. It originally appeared in RedVoiceMedia.com and is used by permission.

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