The angry and sometimes violent speech expressed by parents at school board meetings in recent years has found a mirror, as students at high schools throughout California increasingly are willing to criticize each other about politics views, race and sexuality.
What’s more, incidents of students demeaning each other verbally are most common on campuses in the most politically divided congressional districts, according to a study based on reports from 150 high school principals released late Monday, March 13, by researchers at UCLA and UC Riverside.
Though principals told the researchers that the vast majority of students don’t engage in such speech, they said the incidents are rising and increasingly problematic. The researchers said such speech is now about three times more common than when they conducted similar polling in 2018.
Though researchers offered several possible causes – including the tone of political advertising in hotly contested congressional districts – they said the rise of angry talk on campus has come during a time when parents increasingly are willing to yell at school board members, teachers and others when they attend school board meetings.
Over the past three years, issues such as mask mandates, America’s history of racism and how LGBTQ issues are discussed in classes have turned public school board meetings into de facto political rallies.
Increasingly, this has resulted in name-calling and, often, threats of violence.
In late 2021, following complaints from national school leaders, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the FBI to investigate a rise in violent speech and threats at public school board meetings. And, last year, an investigation by the news service Reuters found evidence of at least 220 threats of violence or other intimidation involving school boards around the country.
Locally, school boards in Los Alamitos, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the Placentia-Yorba Linda area and Temecula, among other places, have…
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