Kansas elementary school teacher Josiah Enyart recently resigned from his job over mask mandates and the teaching of Critical Race Theory in his school district. He was sent an email from the Shawnee Mission School District on July 25 that renewed mask mandates for all students and unvaccinated teachers. Enyart said it was the “final straw” and that he gave his notice over to the school.
Now, the school wants him to pay a “liquidation penalty” fee of $1,000 for resigning after a specific deadline in the contract. It’s almost as if the original contract, which did not talk about masks or CRT, has no intrinsic value. They just expect teachers to continually follow the rules while changing them to meet their desires. If not, they’ll find them for refusing to teach racism in the classroom.
Enyart said he’s had issued with the school district for years, starting in 2014 when they spent $20 million on new iPads or MacBooks for students. He’d questioned at the time “Why do they need all of this?” The district also taught teachers “Deep Equity Critical Race Theory training at the cost of $400,000. They told all teachers to reject and resist the parents who disagree with it.
Enyart also voiced his criticism of how the school handled teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that teaching remotely does not give parents or teachers a sense of control or accountability where they can help students succeed.
“It’s all critical race theory stuff. That was kind of the start where I realized, they’re really trying to bring this in and make it something. I couldn’t do anything but give them no grade. What a 12th grader has to know and get done to graduate is what a 5th grader had to do 40 years ago,” Enyart said.
Enyart said he will be pulling his own children out of the school district and homeschooling them this upcoming year. He said he will not continue to have his kids bossed around by people and have no power as a parent or as a teacher.
A GoFundMe was established for Enyart to help him raise money for the $1,000 penalty, which has raised over $7,500. Enyart told reporters that he will be bringing his stuff with him, but not a check for the district.
“The board has decided to move forward with the fine assessment. It is in my heart to compensate Josiah from a community of grateful people, who appreciate his willingness to take a stand and say ‘no more.’ He has put his livelihood on the line for our kids, and Shawnee Mission has lost an excellent teacher and one of the few men left to teach our boys and girls,” the GoFundMe page reads.
Students don’t need MacBooks or Critical Race Theory. They need two primary things in order to learn and succeed – Parental involvement in life and a school system that supplements the basics of reading, writing, and math. Schools have always provided opportunities for sports, arts, and music, without the heavily political or racial bias. Schools have turned into a political tool instead of an education tool.
