The Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA) teachers’ union plan to use hundreds of students as pawns in their endeavor to exert control over the district’s school board was organized by a specialist funded by the National Education Association (NEA), one of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions.

Anita Stapleton of Stop Common Core Colorado told Breitbart News that the union is behind the ever-increasing number of students walking out of school to protest what they believe to be a school board that wants to censor what they learn about American history. However, Stapleton says, the student protests are part of a strategic plan by a union that has a history of using students for their own purposes.

“Teachers are manipulating their agenda to gain student support,” Stapleton said. “Now our students believe that our strong opposition to the new APUSH is for censorship and to strip them of their right to freedom of speech. The resolution was to form a study committee to review the framework to determine if it should he repealed.”

Warning: Profanity used in Colorado teacher’s video below:





As reported earlier this week, Ken Witt, Jefferson County (JeffCo) Board of Education president, told Breitbart News that the real issue is a salary dispute with the teachers’ union, and that students are being used by teachers as “political pawns.”

Witt explained that a proposal raised by board member Julie Williams suggested a review of the new Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) curriculum, which he considers to be a reasonable idea, since the College Board has revised the APUSH exam. The proposal, however, Witt said, was never acted upon, though the teachers’ union seized upon that idea as a means to feed false information to students in classes and urge them to protest for their first amendment rights.

The union’s fomenting students to miss classroom learning time, Witt said, is in response to the school board’s rejection of the usual plan to give raises to teachers who are rated “less than effective” and, instead, move toward a merit pay system.

Mike Antonucci, writing at Intercepts, which monitors public education and teachers’ unions, agrees the student protests are very well planned, and come after a conservative majority was elected to the JeffCo Board of Education.

“This didn’t sit well with those who lost, most prominently the Jefferson County Education Association,” writes Antonucci. “And though the two sides hammered out a collective bargaining agreement in May that was approved by 88 percent of the membership, the union fought with the board on a number of issues.”

Antonucci explains:

Perhaps it’s all a coincidence, but at the end of July, 48 NEA UniServ directors from 18 states were sent to Jefferson County to train local officers and activists in conducting home visits with members. Once the school year began, there was a flurry of union activity. JCEA issued a vote of no confidence in school board president Ken Witt. Last week, two high schools had to cancel classes because of a teacher sick-out. JCEA denied responsibility for organizing it, but said it understood teachers’ “frustration.” The local heightened its presence and contributions in campaigns for the state legislature, and is encouraging student protests over the AP History curriculum.

Now, the union plans to spread its recent activities to other districts in the state, using students and their parents as pawns for its political agenda.

According to Antonucci, the Colorado Education Association received a one-year NEA funding grant to hire an organizing specialist “to help bring educators together to fight back against the movement to privatize public education.” The specialist’s job is to coordinate campaigns in five Colorado local affiliates in three “metro area school districts.”

“The organizers will work with local leaders and staff to successfully develop and implement comprehensive organizing plans that incorporate escalating activity,” the job description reads, as well as “high intensity campaigns” that include “rallies, marches, and other direct actions.”

Indoctrination by teacher union activists in JeffCo public schools has been rampant for some time, according to Jen Raiffie, writing at WatchdogWire, who reported in February of 2013 on a video (see above), made in 2012 by Conifer, Colorado West Jefferson Middle School government teacher Joseph Cushing, that has since been deleted from YouTube.

The original title of the video was “F**k You,” and Raiffie writes that though it was not shown in Cushing’s classes, he bragged about it on his Facebook page, which Cushing also described as his “teacher profile.” After an official complaint was filed with JeffCo School district, Cushing’s Facebook accounts were scrubbed and locked down, though he remains an 8th grade classroom teacher of government at the same school.

Raiffie notes that the school district refused to provide information about whether they investigated Cushing’s video, and did not ask her for the names of students she recorded as Cushing’s Facebook friends.