***CALL TO ACTION*** SF85 – CASEL/SEL and Survey Reform legislation

***CALL TO ACTION***  SF85 – CASEL/SEL and Survey Reform legislation.

SF85 requires Iowa schools to obtain parental consent prior to giving surveys that reveal personal information about the student or family. It also restricts what social and emotional learning (SEL)  is allowed to be disseminated in schools. See explanation below as to why SEL is a problem.

Link to read the bill: https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=90&ba=SF85

ACTION NEEDED – Send emails to the following Iowa State Senators requesting that SF85 be brought before the full Education Committee for discussion and to pass it to the full senate for a vote. Do all three if you can, but one is better than none.

1. State Senator Ken Rozenboom, chair of the Education Committee 
2. GOP State Senators on the Education Committee (this also includes Senator Rozenboom however you may want to do a separate email to him since he is the chair). 
3. If your state senator is not on the Education Committee, email or call him/her personally regarding this bill.  To find your legislator and contact info, click here:  https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislators/find

Suggested Subject Line (vary slightly, so it doesn’t look like a form letter): 

SF85 SUPPORT -needs to be heard in Education Committee

ken.rozenboom@legis.iowa.gov
jeff.taylor@legis.iowa.gov
chris.cournoyer@legis.iowa.gov
lynn.evans@legis.iowa.gov
julian.garrett@legis.iowa.gov
kerry.gruenhagen@legis.iowa.gov
tim.kraayenbrink@legis.iowa.gov
sandy.salmon@legis.iowa.gov
amy.sinclair@legis.iowa.gov
cherielynn.westrich@legis.iowa.gov
brad.zaun@legis.iowa.gov

If you have examples from your school about why SEL is dangerous or an example of an SEL survey, please attach it to your email so that the committee members can see real examples.

Talking points/reference items:

• SEL has been transformed from its origins of teaching universal values that we can all agree on, like respect, compassion, self-responsibility, and goal setting, to a program today that includes teaching socialist ideologies and the Marxist gender identity theory, as well as that whites are oppressors against the oppressed persons of color.
• CASEL Transformative SEL seeks to insert a worldview of Marxist ideologies based on critical theories, including their religious ideologies, into our k-12 school children. There is NO diversity of thought allowed.

CASEL includes frequent classroom lessons and student surveys to assess a student’s feelings, thoughts and views, family beliefs, and other intrusive questions about mental health, sexual activity and more.

• Schools and teachers should not be surveying students on their psychological, emotional and mental well-being without written parental consent. Schools should also be required to provide the survey to the parent in advance for their review and approval. Schools should also be required to provide the parent with the student’s answers if they participate in the survey.
• Schools and teachers should not be assessing and diagnosing students for their mental health needs or offering treatments including counseling without written parent consent. This practice should also be a violation of Iowa law on the practice of medicine without a license.

• Schools are spending too much time teaching about “social and emotional learning” in EVERY subject today and therefore less and less time on academics which is resulting in students who are falling behind in the core academics in K through 12 education.

• CASEL is a third-party organization with Marxist roots. The purpose of CASEL’s transformative SEL is to have humans that feel rather than think.

• Schools are using the umbrella term of social and emotional learning which sounds benign and positive, to allow for the teaching of concepts which violate HF802 such as white privilege, divisive concepts, stereotyping, scapegoating, anti-American versions of history that teach that America is systemically racist, and more.

Links to blog posts on SEL you could include:

Something to SELebrate – https://www.iowans4freedom.org/post/something-to-selabrate

SELling out Iowa’s Children – https://www.iowans4freedom.org/post/seling-out-casel-divisive-concepts-hf802