Did you notice that many of your elementary children at that time were sent home with fundraising kits to raise money for classroom testing computers that were obviously not as important as the new Tiger Football Stadium. Since then, I have developed other less than favorable opinions of the Ozark school systems with even one Ozark junior high English teacher telling me to get a life after I questioned her poor use of the English language in one of her assignments, something the administration swept under the rug with an "oh crap" when the realized I was more than a tutor.
With teachers like the one I mentioned above not providing an impressive learning environment for students, administrators and school board members are looking overseas to prepare your children for college, and they are avoiding any debate with parents who discover the program they are adopting at a huge cost to tax payers has anti-American and anti-Christian overtones.
The program is called the International Baccalaureate. It comes with the United Nation's seal of approval, which stems from the IB's support of the UN's Human Rights Doctrine, which directly attacks the United States Constitution and the freedoms we enjoy. For some reason, Chuck Fugate, Dr. Pace, and other administrators don't wish to tell you these things, but soon you will find out as your student starts developing far left ideas that aren't exactly American values.
I want to look at the IB budget. The school board has already appropriated $10,000 of your tax dollars just to apply to the IB. $10,000 has been dropped without any hesitation despite the warnings and concerns of parents. Now, teachers have been told to get their passports ready as the school district begins paying for travel and accommodations to Europe so teachers can go through IB indoctrination training. What do you think it will cost Ozark taxpayers to send teachers to Europe for a few weeks to become IB certified? What promise will there be these teachers stay once this investment has been made?
Doing a search on United Airlines, a trip from Springfield Branson to Geneva, Switzerland, where the IB is headquartered, costs approximately $1000. Then of course there are hotel, transportation, and food costs as well, not to mention the cost the school district must pay the IB to enroll these teachers.
Now think back to the fall of 2008 when Ozark High School sent students home with fundraiser kits to come up with money for testing computers. Considering the school board's priorities of football stadium over vital education materials, why do you trust them with the IB, when the costs of IB just to get started are already taking large amounts of money that could be appropriated to make real improvements to Ozark schools and sending that money to Europe? With each new day, there are new stories of school districts across the country kicking the IB out of their districts when parents realized what is going on.
I think the sad thing here is, in a recent article in the Christian County Headliner, school board president Chuck Fugate didn't even sound 100 percent sure of Ozark's huge investment in just applying to the IB.
Fugate's quote isn't reassuring, but another article in the CCH points out Fugate might not care about what Ozark parents think about the IB.
What parents are going to find out is this program not only is going to attack our American values in the classroom, but it's going to increase property taxes, which include education taxes. The IB is an expensive program, and you can already see getting teachers IB qualified shifts money out of the district and into the hands of Europeans with ties to the United Nations and other radical liberal causes like the Earth Charter, which encourages the redistribution of wealth, same sex marriages, pantheism (a focus away from Christianity to a focus on all religions, and James River Assembly, the largest church in the district, is still endorsing this), and disarming Americans who engage in the Second Amendment.
Remember, the school board is just getting started sending your tax dollars over to Europe. There are other fees, fees that have forced many communities to admit adopting the IB was a mistake as their tax bills increased after their school districts adopted the IB.
