Georgia School Boards Association cuts ties with national association over letter to Biden

The Georgia School Boards Association (GSBA) announced that it has severed ties from the National School Board Association (NSBA) after the national group caused outrage by sending a letter to President Biden warning that “threats and acts of violence” at school board meetings could be acts of “domestic terrorism.”

The Sept. 29 letter to Biden urged the federal government to invoke counterterrorism laws to handle “angry mobs” of parents who attended school board meetings to voice their concerns over the teaching of critical race theory and the continued imposition of mask mandates in the classroom.

After the letter was published, parents showed up to school board meetings wearing T-shirts that said “Parents are not domestic terrorists,” and 27 state school board associations officially distanced themselves from the letter. 

Although the NSBA officially apologized and admitted that there was “no justification for some of the language included in the letter,” Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo just five days after it was sent directing federal law enforcement to help address an alleged “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school teachers and administrators.

The GSBA released a statement explaining that they were unaware of the letter and that they did not ask for federal support in dealing with disruptions at school board meetings. On Nov. 30, their board of directors voted to “withdraw and not pay dues to be a member of NSBA,” The Epoch Times reported.

“The letter that the NSBA Leadership sent to President Biden calling for broad federal law enforcement intervention on behalf of school board members was concerning since GSBA did not ask for it, was not consulted about it, and did not agree with many of the statements” in it, reads a Nov. 30 letter sent from GSBA Executive Director Valarie Wilson to the organization’s membership, which was obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“The GSBA board of directors no longer has faith in NSBA’s ability to effectively represent the interests of our state association and its members,” the letter continues. “We cannot be a part of [an] organization that does not respect and follow the basic principles on which we were founded 70 years ago.”