{"id":3306,"date":"2018-06-12T19:57:46","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T23:57:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3306"},"modified":"2018-06-12T19:57:46","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T23:57:46","slug":"collier-county-textbook-hearing-30-complaints-about-evolution-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3306","title":{"rendered":"Collier County textbook hearing: 30 complaints about evolution & climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heads up, folks. Collier County\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s official textbook hearing will be on Monday, June 18, and the public is invited to attend and be heard. Go to the instructional materials website<\/a> where the guidelines for the meeting and the long list on citizen complaints against evolution and climate change being in the textbooks are posted. (See my previous post for some background<\/a> in case you’re just now joining us concerning science textbook issues in Collier.)<\/p>\n

The general public can speak first at the hearing but will only have three minutes for each person and the focus of the comments must be direct and on point. Extraneous comments will be quickly disregarded. Then those who submitted complaints will get 20 to 30 minutes to present their cases depending on how many complaints they had submitted. Officials from the school district will then be allowed a rebuttal and protesters can then respond.<\/p>\n

This hearing may take a while. Four people had submitted a total of 30 separate complaint forms. Keith Flaugh of the creationist outfit Florida Citizens\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Alliance is well represented with about nine complaint forms. How do we know the Alliance is creationist? Easy. Just read their complaints \u00e2\u20ac\u201d mostly issues with evolution and climate change \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and their source material: The Institute for Creation Research, Wikipedia, the Heartland Institute, Conservapedia, and Stephen Meyer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Doubt.<\/p>\n

The Alliance is relying heavily on the idea that state law governing textbook adoptions requires textbooks be balanced and not discriminate against religion. Similar arguments didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work in Martin County<\/a>, especially when that school district pointed out that the textbooks must adhere to state education standards, which include the teaching of evolution but don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t require so-called alternate ideas. Will that defense be used and stand in Collier County?<\/p>\n

Unlike other school districts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 hearings conducted so far (such as Nassau and Martin Counties), Collier County will apparently have the school board present and the board will vote on what to do about the complaints as soon as the hearing is over.<\/p>\n

To be continued Monday at 3:30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heads up, folks. Collier County\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s official textbook hearing will be on Monday, June 18, and the public is invited to attend and be heard. Go to the instructional materials website where the guidelines for the meeting and the long list … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-Rk","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3312,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3312","url_meta":{"origin":3306,"position":0},"title":"Road trip to Collier County: Speaking up for science education","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I'll be on the road tomorrow morning (Monday) headed to Naples on a mission to help speak up for science education. I hope to see some of you folks there so we can finally meet in person. Why do science defenders need to converge on Collier County? Because a coordinated\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3312#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2756,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2756","url_meta":{"origin":3306,"position":1},"title":"Collier County: the epicenter of textbook calamity","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Fresh off their success in the Florida legislature where their instructional materials bill passed, the Florida Citizens' Alliance is now causing migraine headaches on their home turf:\u00c2\u00a0Group sues Collier County schools over textbook selection -- Three parents sued the Collier County School Board on Wednesday over new textbooks slated for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Textbooks"","block_context":{"text":"Textbooks","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=26"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3274,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3274","url_meta":{"origin":3306,"position":2},"title":"Press Release: Balancing Evolution & Creationism in Schools Unconstitutional","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science News Release (May 13, 2018) --------------------------------------------- BALANCING EVOLUTION AND CREATIONISM IN SCHOOLS UNCONSTITUTIONAL Attempts to alter science textbooks in Collier, Martin and Nassau Counties are a waste of school boards\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 time, money and could lead to costly lawsuits --------------------------------------------- Contact: Brandon Haught \/\u00c2\u00a0bhaught@flascience.org \/ www.flascience.org Citizens\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3315,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3315","url_meta":{"origin":3306,"position":3},"title":"What I did during my summer break, Collier County edition","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll start with the end. Evolution and climate change will remain unmolested in new science textbooks approved by the Collier County school board Monday night. The close 3-2 vote in favor of the textbooks came after a marathon five-hour textbook hearing and school board deliberation. For once, I was able\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3315#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/collier-flaugh-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2645,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2645","url_meta":{"origin":3306,"position":4},"title":"These dangerous bills need to be disarmed","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"An op-ed I wrote was published in today's Daytona Beach News Journal:\u00c2\u00a0Bills threaten science education Of concern to science advocates like us is the Collier group's vociferous opposition to established, accurate science concepts. Among their targeted objectionable materials are lessons about evolution and climate change. The single most alarming statement\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Instructional Materials bills '17"","block_context":{"text":"Instructional Materials bills '17","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2737,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2737","url_meta":{"origin":3306,"position":5},"title":"Textbook battles: a glimpse into the future","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the most controversial issues in recent years when it comes to textbooks used in Florida schools is the coverage of religion in history books. The topic was the spark that started the whole instructional materials bills fiasco we're now facing. And the subject is obviously still white hot.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Instructional Materials bills '17"","block_context":{"text":"Instructional Materials bills '17","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}