Glendale Unified School Board Meeting Brawl: What really happened?

Yeah, this is scary. Any reasonable person knows that this is not good. Any reasonable person knows that violence is never a good thing. Never a good thing. All right. That was a video from USA Today. Good morning, everyone. It's wow. It's Thursday, June 8th. And I'm Jill Simonian with PragerU Kids, and this is Aldo Butazzoni. Hello. I love, I listen, this is a very serious video that we just watched from USA Today. All of you, most of you who follow us have probably seen this all over social media by now, but Aldo was there at the Glendale Unified School Board meeting that happened earlier this week. And I brought you here today because there are a lot of lies that are happening in the media over and over again regarding these school board meetings, all of our fans and viewers who already know about PragerU Kids and what we're trying to do to restore education, to be academic and inclusive of all, not just one side of a narrative. Everyone knows that you can stay informed with PragerUKids.com by subscribing and getting our parent alerts. But for those of you who don't yet know, I brought Aldo here because you were at this school board meeting that happened. That's been all over national news and you've witnessed firsthand the lies. I really quickly want to go back before we get into our conversation, Aldo. First of all, are you okay? I'm fine. I had a bullhorn stubbed in my ear, so I'm still recovering slowly, but I'm fine. Okay, good. Because I'm not going to lie. I was really worried about Aldo. Okay. For those of you who are watching, first of all, if you're watching on Facebook, leave us a comment, tell us where you're from. I know that some of you also tune in on YouTube. Please let us know where you're at. I want to break this down because that video that we just watched from USA Today gave a one-sided account of what's happening. And most of you have seen that video all over national news, Fox, USA Today, ABC, CBS, CNN, all of those things. And quite often we get a one-sided view of what is actually happening at school board meetings. Of course, the Department of Justice years ago cited all parents who speak at school board meetings concerned for their children's education as, you know, domestic terrorists. We remember that. And this is just another example because that USA Today video, the copy that was on the video said that there was, it mentioned, I believe, that the school board was going to celebrate LGBTQ month and protesters caused trouble outside. That's just part of the, I hate to use this word, misinformation, but mistruths. Please tell us what happened when you were there. And then I want to go to an article so you can help us break us down. What happened? You show up at the Glendale school board meeting. Why? Yeah. So I went to the Glendale school board meeting a couple months ago just to report on this, to ask parents what was going on. I was there with you. Oh yeah, we were there. Yeah. Um, and the one that, the reason we went yesterday, I went with producer cam to film and talk to parents. This one was a little bit different because unlike before where it was just parents attending, uh, on social media, Antifa in the far left had stated that they made plans to go to this in an attempt to intimidate the parents, um, to intimidate anybody that was speaking out against the school board. And so I knew this was going to be contentious. People were, you know, we're gearing up for this. And immediately when I got there, hundreds of people in the parking lot, there were police helicopters, uh, all in the sky, you know, news helicopters. It was crazy from the onset. And that's, and that's one of the things too, that, you know, you said the A word. I call this the A word because I'm so tired. Antifa, Antifa, why is now we have been following these Glendale school board meetings. Okay. And if you are in the Glendale unified school district, leave us a comment. Tell us, you know, if you were there, uh, anything that happened that may not be reported, uh, on nationwide media right now, um, that you want to, you know, that you want to get out there. But like you said, a month ago, you and I were both at this meeting. Uh, not, not this meeting. You and I were both at a Glendale unified school board meeting. It was contentious. Parents were speaking, but it was all about parents speaking with other parents who happened to be on opposing sides of the issue. This meeting that happened Tuesday, June 6th had a pre, uh, what do we call it? Predetermined, um, um, pre predesignated intention from Antifa Antifa shared that they were going to this June 6th meeting. And that is absurd. Do you have, you have, um, some, you have video, right? We need to change. We're doing technical things here. Everyone who's watching live that you're seeing it live, you're getting the technicalities of what's happening here. Prior to this meeting, June 6th, Antifa SoCal, and I hate even giving them any press, but they were sharing that they were going to be there. Yeah. Cam, do we have this, uh, up on the, up on the screen cam? So yeah, as you can see here, they posted things like this. I'm saying that attend the Glendale school board meeting to oppose anti LGBTQ against hate groups, trying to silence LGBTQ people. And first of all, misinformation again, no parent there said that they were anti LGBTQ, it was actually the opposite. Most of the people I spoke to a couple of months ago and yesterday or in a couple of days ago said the exact opposite, that they are fine with LGBTQ people, that they are, they are totally accepting of it. What they are against though, is it being shoved down children's throats and they don't want sexualized content of any kind, whether it be straight, gay, whatever. Um, and just to give context back in May of 2022, a local parent activist, Jordan Henry filed the public's public records request, um, that, that revealed a third grade elementary school teacher in the Glendale unified school district showed her students a video of a coming out and a pride video that was apparently so egregious that they reassigned her within the district and that teacher no longer shows up in this, in the staff directory. So again, they claim that it's about education, but if they're showing kids third graders videos that are apparently so inflammatory that the teacher had to be reassigned and no longer shows up in the staff directory, I'm sorry, but that says a lot and it's not about this education. It really is about indoctrination. It is about, you know, not just accepting and tolerating, but celebrating and reinforcing this to kids. And so this is about parental rights. This is about parents being able to know what's going on in their children's and them supporting that has nothing to do with anti LGBTQ. It's about them wanting to know more about what's going on in the classrooms and that's totally acceptable. Absolutely. And I want to really reinforce this because I do, those of you who tune into my, uh, weekly lives that I do specifically for parents on our PragerU Facebook page and YouTube about once a week. Um, I have followed the Glendale unified school district for several months now because full disclosure, and I've said this before and I'm obligated to say it again, I do have personal ties to this district, to people who work in this district. I know many of this, you know, these cast of characters, I know them personally, school board members. I know Jordan Henry, uh, personally. And it's, it's, it's, it's crazy to me to see how this is escalated, but I'm not surprised because here are a few more examples. Although you just talked about how, um, and, and, and I'm going to refrain from saying the names from, um, you know, from on the record here, but you talked about how the third grade teacher a few years ago were showing gender ideology lessons in a third grade class without parental consent. Yes, that was something that was found through a freedom of information act request, which we constantly endorse here at PragerU kids to file the FOIA requests to get the information you need about what's happening inside classrooms. Um, another example is that happened the past few years is that back in 2019, and I covered this on one of our Facebook lives also, there was a GSA gay straight Alliance club that was started by a teacher at Rosemont middle school. When those types of clubs, GSA is supposed to be a student led club. This teacher gave a presentation to other teachers at the California teachers association union meeting about how to, uh, start a student led club by poaching students from a counseling office who she cited as unstable to be able to start a gay straight Alliance club against her then principals wishes at the time. So that was found happening behind closed doors without parental consent. And the most recent example also is with the assistant superintendent of Glendale unified school district, who has been allegedly hiding student records in her office regarding students changing their pronouns. Okay. And we don't know if she is or is not sharing this with those said students who have allegedly changed their pronouns. But all of these things over the past few years have been happening at Glendale schools and parents have been going to the school board meetings vocally begging and pleading for transparency. And the school board of Glendale unified has been completely lackadaisical, does not hear them, does not acknowledge that these are valid concerns from parents in the school district. So that is what has led up to this terrible scene of the brawl outside of the recent meeting this week. Yeah. We'll, we'll get into the Antifa Antifa video in a second, but I just want to hit on a couple more points in regard to the policy. And I think it's really important to note how these laws are written so that for example, parents on the other side that I spoke to say, say, well, there's no boys in the girls' locker room. There's no girls in the boys' locker room. Well, they're very tricky with their wording. They see a biological girl in the boys' bathroom or vice versa. And to them, they say, well, that's a girl. So they can claim with their words that, well, there's no girls in the boys' bathroom because if she claimed she's a boy, she's a boy. But that's not what we're talking about. Um, when we talk about the, the superintendent keeping records in her office of a child's sexual identity and hiding it from the parents, they also say that that's not happening. Well, again, the law is written in such a way that says that teachers can't conceal this information or only have to reveal information to parents when appropriate. Well, again, that's subjective who gets to decide what is appropriate or not. So they'll claim that they're not concealing information, but it's written in such a way that allows them to do that without claiming that they're breaking any rules. Um, when you get into things like SB 48, this is a California bill that not only allows LGBTQ education or allows you to bring up the gender identity of people in social studies classes, but it requires it. It requires them to teach about these things. And again, I think I'm alongside with these parents, which I'm saying, I'm not against you teaching or educating or bringing up someone's gender identity in the context of education if it's important to the story. But what I am against is you requiring you having to educate kids on someone's gender identity. I don't think that that teaches kids a very important lesson that that somebody's historical contribution to the country or to this or to that or whatever it is in social study settings is important because of their sexual identity. It's important because of what they did. And if you want to just so happen, you know, talk about their gender identity than that, then that is what it is. But to require it, I think takes it a step further. Um, and I just, I think it's wild what we're seeing. Yeah, it is. Do you have another video pulled up or you're not ready for that yet? No. Yeah. So this is, you know, I, I've reported for a couple of years now I've encountered Antifa when I was in DC for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I've encountered Antifa, um, intimidating. We're trying to intimidate me when I'm in Texas, you know, reporting on these drag shows. So I have experience with them, with them in the past. And what they always do is, you know, I talked to many parents that were, you know, going against the GUSD and I'm there to get the facts, to hear why they're there. And then I go to the other side and I couldn't get basically anybody to talk to me because what I had and, you know, can, can back this up. You were surprised. No, but I can't get this up. We, we go and ask, you know, why are you out here today? Why are you against these parents? And you have these Antifa members that are goggles on masks on and they tail us. And anybody that we try to talk to, they try to get in our face. They block the camera. They tell people that we're trying to don't talk to these guys. They're right wing fascists, which I think is very ironic because, you know, fascists are the ones that are trying to take control of the media and shut down conversation. But this was my encounter with just a small encounter with Antifa that we saw there. This is the group that's saying that we're please don't touch me. Get out of here. Please do not touch me. Here's the thing. I, me laughing. Those of you who know me, who watch and listen, when I laugh, it is because I literally don't know what else to do. That is terrifying. And kudos to you for keeping your cool. This is exactly by the way. Like I said, I've gone to the Glendale school board meetings in the past to support the group of parents. But this right here is exactly why full disclosure. My husband said, I do not want you there. Because we saw the notice that Antifa was going to show up. And whenever Antifa shows up, you know, it's bad news. I didn't know. I was very, very frightened for you guys who went because you don't know if they're going to bring some kind of a bomb. You don't know what they're going to bring because every time we see anything that involves Antifa, there is violence and no one here. Yeah. I mean, violence is okay. Well, I, you know, let's say that no, what we don't think violence is okay for anyone. No, absolutely. This is absolutely terrifying. Well how many times have the parents gone out to GUSD and had these peaceful protests? But the first time Antifa comes, it becomes violent. I think that says all that needs to be said. And one thing that I do want to go through now, is it okay if I hook up the, uh, the, I'm going to, I'm going to connect my computer here so they can see my screen. This is a, are there any comments coming in that you can read? I'm not, I'm actually curious to see what people say. So this right here is a, there we go right here. We got an article from the Los Angeles daily news and I purposely pulled up the daily news here because I wanted to see what quote unquote mainstream media was writing about this. This is just one of many, many articles. I just plucked this one for no particular reason. It just, you know, came to the top of my search. LGBTQ protections and gender policy sparks Glendale school board war. So it says here, GUSD school board meeting draws more than 200 protesters. You were there, were there more than 200? For sure. For sure. Okay. 75 commenters and dozens of police. So that's all true. Okay, good. I just, I'm curious here. Furious debate over how gender identity should be taught to children and protected in schools unfolded Tuesday. Okay. At 5 PM, a crowd of more than 200 gathered. All this checks out. Police cop, helicopters circled overhead. Is that true? Yep. Great. On one side were protesters opposed to teaching children about sexual identities in school. And on the other side where LGBTQ plus advocates preaching a message of inclusion. There's the magic word because you know, see, look at, see who looks like the bad guy who looks like the good, right? Right. Inclusion, inclusion, inclusion signs that say, uh, what is it? We have hate. No, no, no tolerance for, uh, no tolerance for hate here. Or, you know, this isn't inclusive. No, no tolerance for intolerance. Yeah. That was the big buzzword. Okay. So here's what I want to get to also the school board's agenda for this particular meeting included a resolution celebrating pride month, but the agenda had no items related to curriculum changes or gender policies. Okay, fine. I want to scroll down though and get to this part about the actual agenda. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Let's see. Uh, oops, I'm scrolling. This always happens to me. Those of you who watch. Okay. Attendance to the meeting was capped. We got it. We got it. Where is the link that says the agenda? I have the agenda for the Glendale unified school district meeting on June 6th. They were at this meeting. Hold on LA. They took it off. Oh my goodness. That you right now. Okay. For everyone watching daily news, seemingly removed a link that I wanted to share with you, but it's a good thing that I previously saved the link in this article. When I previously read it, guys, this is seriously happening live. Now this is a change. This is a surprise to me. When I previously read this article, there was a link to the school board meeting agenda and it cited superintendent Dr. Vivian action who, um, who was along with her school board going to make a declaration for the school district to celebrate pride month. And that was included in this agenda. And here's the agenda right now that I found board of education agenda June 6th. I'm showing you this for the purpose of showing the irresponsibility of this particular Glendale unified school district school board and district and their failure to listen to parents concerns. This is the agenda June 6th. If you scroll down on this agenda, it will show that they scheduled all sorts of students to perform. Okay. Student performance. Glendale high school elite dance team. The dance team was scheduled to perform at this June 6th meeting. Okay. They scheduled children, minors, high school students to perform and the public hearing. Let me get down here. Where's the declaration? There is a declaration action items, action items for, Oh my goodness. Why can I never find this when I need it? Oh, right here. Action item. Number one resolution number 27 proclaiming June 2023 as LGBTQ plus pride month. The superintendent recommends that the board of education adopt this resolution designating June 2023 as LGBTQ pride month. This resolution was put on a school board agenda when school is almost out by the way. Okay. We're in early June. School is almost out. This agenda item to proclaim the entire month of June as pride month was put on an agenda for the same meeting time where they scheduled minors to perform that that in and also for previous months had had very, very contentious school board meetings. Did the school board seriously or the school district for that matter and Dr. Action, did they not think that this particular meeting was going to get contentious and possibly dangerous given the background of the last two years of school board meetings? Did they not think that things would escalate and they had the wherewithal to schedule students to perform at this particular board meeting? Which they then canceled because they said, Oh, we can't have students here. You put something like this on an agenda months after you continue to ignore parents and things continue to escalate, escalate, escalate, escalate and get worse and worse. And last week, let's not forget North, the school in North Hollywood had a protest where people were throwing punches. You put something like this on an agenda when you're almost out of school. Does that make sense? No, I mean, it's irresponsible. It is irresponsible, but they do this so that they can, like you said, uninvite the kids and say, well, it's because the parents were creating a dangerous environment for these kids. No, you're not listening to parents. The Glendale Unified School District is not listening to parents. I saw one report that showed that up to 60% of students didn't attend class because parents pulled them out of school when they were attending when the school had this prior to day events. Um, and whether or not you disagree with the parents viewpoints, you are still paid to do what the parents want. You are a tax funded school. You are a tax funded salary and a teacher and a faculty member. So you can disagree with the parents. But at the end of the day, your job is to do what the parents want you to do in terms of their education, in terms of what's going on in the children's classrooms. Um, so it is very irresponsible. I think they're doing this for clicks and for views. And again, none of the parents are anti LGBTQ. They are simply wanting more parental rights, um, and more say over what's going on in their kids classrooms. And it's in particular for, and I will speak on behalf of some of these parents, the parents that I know, at least this, this is not, no one hates the gay community. I certainly don't. The, I mean, the issue is that these very complex adult themed topics, about who people are attracted to, who people want to be intimate with these topics do not belong in elementary school, especially. And that is where the Glendale parents draw the line. And many of them, I mean, it's, it's interesting to me because I am Armenian American and all over the news, I'm seeing Armenian parents, Armenian parents, Armenian parents. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. Armenian parents don't mess around. I just think it's so ridiculous. Like it's, it's being prioritized. It's not even that they're accepting of it or that they're educating. It's that they're prioritizing this over actual education. And you know what, what happened? I see this a lot. I saw this a lot in college where they say, this is black pride month or this is gay this month because we want to help the black students or we want to help the gay students. You know what, what actually helps any marginalized group? What have, what helps any, any student it's prioritizing education, math, reading, science, history, whatever. And so when you have these things on a school board meeting on their agenda, that necessarily means that they are prioritizing this over the education of their students. Back when I was in elementary school or middle school or whatever, we had gay teachers. We knew who they were. We knew what their lives were like. We had gay students. We knew who they were. We knew what their lives were like and who they were attracted to. But what we didn't have was them prioritizing this and shoving it in our faces over and over and over. And I got to say, we were a lot more accepting and inclusive back then than now when they seem to make it a priority in every facet of education, in every facet of, of social life. And that's the problem is we can have an accepting school. We can have a school that educate students, but it's the way that they're going about it. And again, I think this sends the wrong message to students that apparently your sexuality and your gender identity is something that is up for discussion, that it needs to be discussed over and over and over. And again, Dennis Prager talked about this on fireside chat a couple of days ago. Oh, this was a great fireside. You know, I'm five 10. Should I be proud of that? I have brown hair. Should I be proud of that are immutable characteristics and the things that they claim, you know, are not a choice. It's just who you are. That isn't something again that if it's just who you are, then why are we celebrating it? Why are we going over and over and over and talking about it? Education is for, you know, these schools are for educating students. It's not for reinforcing your gender identity and talking about who you love and who you sleep with and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just think that we've lost the plot here. Yeah, we're off track. Everything is, everything is lost. Everything is off track. We're totally off track. It jumped over the cliff, right? Yeah. And, and, and one of the things that I have heard certain parents say in the Glendale parents voices group, not, excuse me, wrong group. In the Glendale parents group that is opposing this you know, these types of lessons in in elementary schools, they keep saying this is an assault on people's private lives. It is, it is an assault on people's private lives there. You are completely obliterating the concept of privacy. You are at, which is a tragedy. I mean, think about it. Every, right now you have these, this this generation of children and students growing up to think that every single thing you do is mandated to be made public or this false sense of inclusion or tolerance. It is garbage and it's wrong. Well, that's the point is the parents, they don't want their straight lives to be public. They don't want, they don't want their sexuality even if it's straight to be included. Why are we including discussions about your private relationships? Correct. Correct. That's the issue here. And it's just, you know, this, it honestly, you know, although you and I are sitting here and I, you know, I'm getting fired up as a mother who does have a personal connection to this particular school district and the people involved. And I'm getting really, I get angry, but at the core of that anger is real true sadness. It makes me sad. When I woke up June 7th and I saw all the videos that were happening, it broke my heart. And you know, a lot of people will send me DMS on my Instagram saying, why aren't you commenting? Why aren't you commenting? And it's because because I don't want to comment yet. I'm sad. I am sad that this is what is happening. It is devastating that parents are being tossed to the side without any sort of regard for how children should be educated in an age appropriate way. It's tragic. And in this particular case, yeah, I'll go on the record and say Glendale Unified School District, in my opinion, should be very ashamed of themselves. This is not cool. It's not cute. It's not fun. It's not inclusive and it's not tolerant. Yeah, it's not. My computer screen. Oh, here we go. You know, I just think like across the country, we see school district after school district coming back with abysmal test scores and math, reading, science. And I do think that this is a symptom of us prioritizing, like I said, this social justice and these more social aspects instead of actual education. So that's where the real tragedy is. Every minute learning about sexual identity and LGBTQ and this and that is times that they're not becoming proficient in math, reading, and science. And that sets them up for failure in the longterm. You know, they're going to maybe they're the best and the most proficient in knowing what every letter of the LGBTQ plus means. But guess what? They're not going to be very well suited for college and getting set up to be an engineer or a scientist or whatever it is. And I think that's really what's important. And I do want to add it. Yeah, absolutely. I do want to add to when you're talking about tolerance, let's not forget about the teacher. When you're talking about tolerance in Glendale Unified School District, you released a gay man who was a teacher from his classroom because he spoke out against including this type of education in schools. There's a teacher, Ray Shelton. It's very public. Everyone knows. I mean, I'm not breaking any news here, but he was a beloved teacher in the Glendale Unified School District for decades. Everyone loved him. And the minute he started speaking out about, Hey, you know, some of these, some of these ideologies do not belong in elementary schools. They, they Chuck, they, they got rid of him. They released him from his classroom. They said, thank you. No, thank you, Mr. Shelton. But we are, you know, we're, and, and I believe he's in, I believe he's in a, I don't know if it's a lawsuit, but I believe he is contesting what happened to him rightfully. So, so going back to this brawl that happened really quickly, did you see this video of this brawl that happened? Were you, did you like see it break out firsthand? I did not know you did it. Okay. So if you did see a breakout firsthand, we're curious. We know that three arrests were made. The story is all over the news. I know you're following the solution for all of this. And I really didn't say the solution of all of this is just keep your kids home from school. Unfortunately, the solution right now, Glendale parents, I mean, my personal take on this is it's the end of the school year. Full disclosure, teachers aren't doing anything at the end of the school year anyways. All the tests, the standardized tests, everything is closed. Everything, everything is finished. They've already completed all of their tests. Keep your kids home. Keep your kids home. No school district should be getting the taxpayer dollars. Her head per student for any of this, keep your kids home. If you can pull them out. I mean, it's sad that I'm saying this because I used to be a proponent of public education, um, with all of its ups and downs, but it's, it's really sad. It's really sad. Um, any, I'm curious to see any thoughts in the comments. Let's see. Aldo, anything else that you would like to add regarding your experience there? Um, you know, I think we covered it pretty well. Although I will say that I think a lot of people on both sides have more in common and would agree more, um, than, than people would think. You know, I spoke to one parent and she said that she would have been against, you know, all this stuff happening too, but she didn't see it. You know, she, she was there with her daughter that was in first grade I think. And she said that she's never seen it. So I think that's perfect, perfectly reasonable. If a parent says, you know what, I would be against this. I just haven't personally seen it. Personally, I've seen it. But, um, but the parents that are being vocal about it and their kids have seen this, I think that it's a legitimate issue that needs to be addressed and that the educators should take seriously. And also, you know, I don't think it helps the parents cause. And I saw a lot of this, I'm going to be honest, parents yelling obscenities at the other side. And there, so again, there was violence and there was inappropriate inappropriate behavior on both sides and we completely condemn any violence. So I think that there's a way that both sides could go about this better. But at the end of the day, this is about the students. This is about the kids. This is about parental rights, nothing to do with LGBTQ, um, you know, anti LGBTQ. This really is about parental rights and, um, knowing what's going on in a children's classroom. Absolutely. All right. Thank you, Aldo. As usual, Aldo is a beacon of sanity for me many times. Uh, if you want to continue to stay informed, you can always, always follow Aldo on Instagram. Um, I'm also on Instagram PragerU Instagram here on our Facebook lives. I will, I will, um, pop onto Facebook, uh, once or, uh, you know, once or twice every few weeks, giving parent alerts about what's happening in school districts. You can subscribe for free to pragerukids.com. We include parent alerts about what's happening in education across the country as well as our free videos and resources to educate kids with knowledge that is wholesome, uh, nonpolitical and really just rooted in critical thinking and, um, diversity of thought. So we say thank you to the parents who continue to stand up, stay strong, stay peaceful, stay joyful through all of this chaos. And, uh, we thank you. Thanks Aldo. Thanks so much. Thanks guys.