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After asking parents to report “inherently divisive teaching practices,” Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office is refusing to make public the emails sent to a tip line launched last week.
When Margaret Thornton heard about the tip line, she worried it would roll back the progress made in public education over the past few years. But to her dismay, the governor cited a public records exemption Wednesday saying the emails she sought were considered “working papers and correspondence of the Office of the Governor.”
“I wanted to see what folks were saying and if that was matching up with the governor’s rhetoric,” said Thornton, a post-doctoral scholar at Princeton University whose research focuses on segregation in schools.
A similar request filed by several news organizations, including the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot, was refused on the same grounds. Youngkin’s administration did not respond to requests for comment.
The account became a target for people on social media who vowed to flood the tip line with positive comments or jokingly submitted false reports. Eight Virginia public education organizations released a joint letter Thursday saying the state’s educational standard does not promote the racially divisive practices outlined in Youngkin’s first executive order.
Additionally, the letter said having a tip line is divisive because there are measures in place within a school division to file a complaint about “controversial or potentially inappropriate instructional practices.”
Megan Rhyne, executive director for Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said a government agency isn’t required to cite the exemption, but that it’s a choice to withhold the requested records.
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“This (tip line) has been looked at very publicly and it’s going to impact people, a lot of teachers, schools,” she said.
Thornton said she wasn’t surprised when she saw her request had been denied.
“(This administration) came in and they said they were going to represent parents,” Thornton said. “They claimed that they were for transparency. And this is an opportunity to be transparent about our schools and they are choosing secrecy. I find that very disappointing and likely very harmful to the children of the commonwealth.”
[ Questions remain over Youngkin’s new tipline for ‘divisive’ practices in Virginia schools ]
Thornton said she was a high school teacher in Virginia for five years and sympathizes for her teacher friends who’ve expressed concerns about the tip line. She agrees teachers should be culturally aware of the students they’re teaching and held accountable for wrongdoing. But she said this provides yet another challenge, making it more difficult to teach students on top of the avalanche of issues brought on by the pandemic.
Thornton posted the governor office’s response on Twitter, which garnered hundreds of likes, gaining attention from elected officials, including State Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth.
“This is not how (the state Freedom of Information Act) works,” Lucas tweeted. “If the Governor wants to set up a tip line to report teachers who mention Black History he shouldn’t be hiding what he ‘finds’.”
Sierra Jenkins, 229-462-8896, sierra.jenkins@virginiamedia.com