These moms are preparing for war.
Just in time for the start of the school year, a group of New York City parents has organized to help fight critical race theory and what they say is woke “indoctrination” happening at their kids’ schools.
There is no website or formal organization, but a word-of-mouth coalition has begun communicating over Signal, an encrypted messaging app. The coalition is keen to stay in the shadows — to protect their children from retaliation — and does not plan any bold demonstrations. But they are deadly serious.
“We want [school administrators] to be afraid and to know we’re not kidding,” said one mom, who gathers with like-minded parents at a sumptuous apartment on Park Avenue to commiserate and plot strategy over expensive red wine.
The core group has about a dozen members variously known as “Undercover Moms,” “The OG Parent Taskforce” and “The Cabinet.”
Their children are enrolled at some of the city’s most prestigious private schools, including Dalton, Spence, Horace Mann, Collegiate, Riverdale Country School, Trinity, Brearley, Poly Prep and others.
In addition to carefully monitoring reading lists, curricula, and school speakers, the moms have upped the ante and plan to start digging into the personal and professional backgrounds of teachers, school board members and heads of schools.
“We need to start putting the heat on and it’s going to be through the media and our next line of attack will be shaming these schools so much that donors start putting up a fight,” one mom said.
Their allies and members have already played a hand in exposing the salaries of their schools’ leaders and have taken aim at the National Association of Independent Schools.
While the mothers would prefer to handle things internally, they gripe that their concerns have been dismissed.
“My children are young, very young, like kindergarten, and they were taught that white people hate black people,” said one mother despairingly.
Another noted that her school had “taken away all the classics … because they were written by white men” and replaced them with newer books more focused on “oppression.”
The movement comes as a group of New Jersey prep-school parents also aired their grievances. In July, after an English teacher abruptly quit over critical race theory being injected into the curriculum at Dwight-Englewood School in Bergen County, parents sent an anonymous survey to 1,520 parents and alumni asking if they were concerned about what they termed the school’s new “toxic ideology.”
About 73 percent of the 218 responses indicated “concern” with the school’s new direction, according to FAIR, the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism.
The Manhattan moms insist they are not working with any outside political organizations and their group is an entirely grassroots effort. Many were connected by Paul Rossi, a former teacher at Grace Church High School who memorably spoke out against critical race theory at his school. He now volunteers for FAIR.
They bristle at any insinuation they are colluding with right-wing forces.
“[We] are Obama voters,” said one mother. “These ladies are all liberal. Or they used to be. They are homeless politically right now.”
