Moms for Liberty San Luis Obispo County

March Newsletter

Greetings! I hope this newsletter finds you well. This newsletter is to keep you informed about what is happening in our local Moms for Liberty Chapter and gives you ways to get involved. Please read on to find opportunities to make a difference.

Moms for Liberty, SLO Chapter Meeting

Join us at our chapter meeting on March 27, 2023, at 5:00-6:30 PM. This meeting is open to all Moms for Liberty San Luis Obispo County members. Make sure you RSVP to our event via Facebook and check out the minutes and agenda at the links below so you don't miss out on the great things happening. Location at The Barber Shop in Atascadero.

Lance Christensen’s “Education Townhall”

Lance Christensen is coming back to the central coast on a statewide tour this spring to meet with all those interested in the future of K-12 education in California. He wants to put all options for reform on the table and discuss them vigorously among friends. Once some form of agreement is reached, then we can collectively decide the best legislative and political way forward.

The date of this townhall is still being confirmed. Look for it in the April newsletter for more details.

This is not a listening tour, a series of lectures, or gripe sessions. It’s a large-scale focus group actively moderated by Lance in a two-hour session. He wants to invite open dialogue that will allow us to diagnose the problem and engage with attendees in a lively exchange on potential changes, improvements, and/or structural reforms necessary to realign our educational priorities and trajectory for a thriving 21st century California. He welcomes sharp opinions and informed disagreement about viable alternatives.

Once the initial spring tour is complete, Lance plans on spending the summer pouring over the results of these meetings with his team at California Policy Center (CPC) and developing a set of comprehensive education policy proposals likely to gain broad support among Californians.

You’re skeptical that any reform of value can be achieved in California. We get it. Lance spent the better part of the last two years having thousands of conversations centered around better education options, and the sense of helplessness and hopelessness is palpable and nearly universal. Yet, if you’re still in California, it suggests that you too think there may be a chance to improve our fortunes and revive the imperiled California Dream. Stay tuned for more details!

Kenney Enney’s Campaign Is On a Roll

Kenney Enney has posted his “Back To Basics” plan for education reform in the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District. He is concerned about our children’s safety, academic performance standards, and getting the community involved to make a difference. Take a look at his webpage and join his campaign efforts.

AB659 “Cancer Prevention Act”

Moms for Liberty San Luis Obispo chapter president, Trisha Murray, has been to many board meetings in the last month educating our boards and others about AB659 that is right now in the Health Committee in Sacramento. Trisha has called on all central coast school district boards to write a letter to oppose this bill. The intent of the bill is to prevent cases of cancer related to HPV, but M4L SLO is reaching out to bigger voices because of the following serious concerns:

• The inflexible implementation of “one-size-fits-all” medical requirements places a disproportionate and unequal risk burden on those individuals who are genetically, otherwise biologically, or environmentally at higher risk for suffering harm from medical interventions.

• Some parents have strongly held religious beliefs that prevent them from vaccinating their children for HPV. This bill would discriminate against those that hold such beliefs.

• There has been a growing concern amongst parents regarding the safety of the HPV vaccination. These concerns need to be addressed through information rather than through requiring a vaccine.

• Requiring the HPV vaccine might have a negative effect on enrollment and access to education. Approximately 30% of teens in California have not received the HPV vaccine. We should not be placing additional constraints on access to education especially in light of declining enrollment in California schools.

• Dozens of lawsuits have been filed by HPV vaccine recipients against Gardasil's manufacturer, Merck, alleging serious life altering injuries. The state should not be requiring a product with this amount of active litigation pending.

• HPV is a sexually transmitted disease and is not spread through the casual contact that kids encounter in a school setting. Therefore a school vaccine requirement is neither appropriate nor applicable.

M4L SLO strongly encourages everyone to write to your local representatives to oppose AB659 if it gets out of committee and goes to a vote, unless it is amended to remove the HPV vaccine requirement for 8th-12th graders to attend public or private school. Click on the link below to find contact information for our local representatives.

Moms for Liberty SLO Library Committee

Are you fed up with the books that are being allowed into our children’s schools? Now is the time to join our Moms for Liberty SLO Library Committee. They had their first meeting and are starting to create a list of books that are known to be a problem to check against our school library lists, looking at library policies in both the district and from the state, and starting to get to know who our local librarians and library techs are. We need your help! Please reach out to [email protected] to join our committee.

Did You Know?

Our “Did You Know…” series on our Moms for Liberty SLO Facebook page has had the opportunity to post twelve posts. Have you seen them? This series focuses on four areas that concern us most: elections, parents, teachers, and M4L. Here is another one. Hopefully you find them interesting and useful. If you have an interesting fact to share, please send it to Erin Westmoreland and you may see it come up in the series.

Upcoming Events

1. Moms for Liberty SLO Chapter Meeting. Monday, March 27, 2023, from 5:00-6:30 PM (The Barber Shop, 4865 El Camino Real, Atascadero, CA).

2. Local Board Meetings:

   • Tuesday, March 21, 2023, at 7:00 PM - AUSD and LMUSD

   • Thursday, March 23, 2023 at 6:30 PM - TUSD

   • Tuesday, March 28, 2023, at 6:00 PM - PRJUSD

   • Tuesday, April 4, 2023, at 7:00 PM - AUSD and LMUSD

   • Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 6:30 PM - TUSD

   • Tuesday, April 11, 2023, at 6:00 PM - PRJUSD

   • Wednesday, April 12, 2023, at 6:00 PM - PVSD and 7:00 PM CESD

   • Thursday, April 13, 2023, at 6:00 PM - CUSD

   • Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at 7:00 PM - AUSD and LMUSD

   • Wednesday, April 19, 2023, at 5:30 PM - AACA