Virginia dad Scott Smith, who was famously convicted, and then pardoned by Gov. Glenn Youngkin for standing up against the Loudoun County School Board (LCSB), says the newly elected board members have “let us down.”
Smith, whose daughter was sexually assaulted by a boy in a dress in the Stone Bridge High School bathroom, appeared with Dana Perino on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” after the board stuck to party lines and voted to turn off cameras during the time allotted in the meetings for public comment, Fox5 reported.
(Video: Fox News)
“We have nine new school board members this year, and every one of them campaigned on transparency and less division, and this is absolutely the opposite of what they all campaigned on,” Smith said. “They’ve let us down.”
“They haven’t done what they’ve said, and they’re just trying to shut us out,” he continued. “They’re trying to shut moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas out of the public spotlight to be able to speak out against the radical policies.”
The chairwoman of the Loudoun County School Board, Malinda Mansfield, defended the decision, “claiming that the inability to control what members of the public wear and the signs they carry meant that they ‘could have all sorts of things that we could get in trouble with [the Federal Communications Commission] on,'” the Washington Examiner reports.
According to April Chandler, another LCSB member, having the cameras on during that segment of the meetings “invites and undermines the work of the school board and the transparency of the school board.”
Smith said there’s “a new wave” of parents ready to push back.
“A new wave of parents have showed up… when they decided to turn off the cameras, it was because the Hindu and Muslim community, they showed up… I think it freaked out the school board to the point where… they cannot allow another viral moment like mine to go across the land and continue to wake up parents… to say no to this,” he said.
Hindus and Muslims in the school district, Smith said, are “very upset” about Policy 8040, which allows transgender students to choose which restrooms they want to use.
“Policy 8040 is the policy that they were trying to pass three years ago when they covered up the rape of my daughter, and that’s the policy to let boys and girls go into whatever bathroom that they identify with,” he explained.
According to 8040, “Students should be allowed to use the facility that corresponds to their consistently asserted gender identity. While some transgender students will want that access, others may want alternatives that afford more privacy. Taking into account existing school facilities, administrators should take steps to designate gender-inclusive or single-user restrooms commensurate with the size of the school.”
Smith said that he and his family are still fighting for accountability.
“We’re looking forward to our day and justice and finally being able to hold some people accountable,” he told Perino. “But we’ve got a lot ahead of us. We’ve got a big fight ahead of us… We look forward to one day being able to put this behind us, but right now, we’re still in the middle of a battle of our life.”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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