{"id":393,"date":"2008-01-16T22:14:12","date_gmt":"2008-01-17T03:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=393"},"modified":"2008-08-05T20:59:53","modified_gmt":"2008-08-06T00:59:53","slug":"report-from-the-field-st-johns-school-board-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=393","title":{"rendered":"Report from the field: St. Johns school board meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Citizens for Science member Kristine Hoppenworth attended the St. Johns County school board meeting during which the board approved an anti-evolution resolution. Here is Kristine’s report:<\/p>\n

————————<\/p>\n

Hello!\u00c2\u00a0 I attended the St. Johns School Board Meeting last night in St. Augustine at 6 pm.\u00c2\u00a0 Although the resolution wasn’t on the agenda, it was added at the beginning of the meeting as the last resolution, CR 6, to be presented.\u00c2\u00a0 Before CR 6, the audience was packed because this meeting also included recognition of Teachers of the Year, Retirees, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 By 7:20, the final ceremony, listed as CR 5, was complete.\u00c2\u00a0 The board called for a short break in which the room emptied out.\u00c2\u00a0 This break could have come after CR 6, which was the last resolution on the agenda for this section of the meeting, but they chose to place the break before they got to this important matter.<\/p>\n

At 7:30, the issue was introduced as follows, to a handful or audience members:<\/p>\n

“This Resolution urges the State Board of Education to direct the Florida Department of Education to review the new Sunshine State Standards for Science to allow for balanced, objective, and intellectually open instruction in regards to evolution, teaching the scientific strengths and weaknesses of the theory rather than teaching evolution as dogmatic fact.”<\/p>\n

The resolution was then read. [Copy can be seen here<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

Tommy Allen, District 2 board member, talked for about 6 minutes before members of the public were invited to speak.\u00c2\u00a0 He explained that he was taught both evolution and other theories in school, and he found that another theory, that of a grand clock-winder, stood out to him.\u00c2\u00a0 He explained that it was impossible that “things could just happen” and that when he gardens, he never plants a seed for it to grow into a different type of plant than it should.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants the standards to include other theories which are “just as logically likely”.<\/p>\n

From the public, Faye Armitage spoke, worried about science being watered down and about the attempt to insert Christianity into public schools under the guise of teaching the controversy.<\/p>\n

Kim Kendall was next, and gave practically the same talk that she did at the Jacksonville meeting.\u00c2\u00a0 She agrees with everyone, but she wants evolution taught with its flaws.\u00c2\u00a0 She states that over 700 scientists discredit evolution (counting the hits, ignoring the thousands of misses).\u00c2\u00a0 She gave her anecdote about her son coming home from school to tell her that scientists “discovered” that Pluto was not really a planet after all, as she was taught.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite this being a gross misunderstanding of what happened with Pluto, I think she means to use it as an example that evolution is just another old piece of misinformation hanging around which needs to be updated.\u00c2\u00a0 She emphasizes academic freedom (as science without “blinders”) and not religion, but the most current scientific research.<\/p>\n

Niki Abate spoke next, and pointed out that science is happy to accommodate theories supported by scientific data, but that ID has failed to publish one peer-reviewed article.\u00c2\u00a0 She counted the misses that Kim Kendall left out, and also restated that the idea of academic freedom was simply being used as camouflage.\u00c2\u00a0 She concluded by leaving “other theories” to be included not in the science curriculum, but instead in philosophy or religion classes.<\/p>\n

After these speakers, the board voted, and the result was an immediate, in-unison, unanimous “Aye.”<\/p>\n

And that’s that.<\/p>\n

—————————-<\/p>\n

Our sincere appreciation to Kristine for attending and reporting. Also, thanks to Faye Armitage for providing to us a copy of the resolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Citizens for Science member Kristine Hoppenworth attended the St. Johns County school board meeting during which the board approved an anti-evolution resolution. Here is Kristine’s report: ———————— Hello!\u00c2\u00a0 I attended the St. Johns School Board Meeting last night in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-6l","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":396,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=396","url_meta":{"origin":393,"position":0},"title":"Nassau and Jackson counties","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was in a hurry when I posted about the news article this morning about some more counties passing or considering anti-evolution resolutions, so I couldn't do any research concerning the counties mentioned in the story. Now that I have a little bit of time, let's see what we can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=381","url_meta":{"origin":393,"position":1},"title":"Two more resolutions","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"[this post updated with a third county for a total of six so far] I've been doing a methodical search of school district websites for any information that might reveal more school boards issuing anti-evolution resolutions like Taylor, Baker and Holmes did. (Previous post about: possibility of 12 total counties\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":352,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=352","url_meta":{"origin":393,"position":2},"title":"Those not in favor of good science education, raise your hand.","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"[I will bump this post up about once a week so as to always be on the front page. Latest bump: Feb. 15.] For your convenience, here is a list of the 12 counties that passed anti-evolution resolutions: Clay, Jackson, Baker, Hamilton, Holmes, St. Johns, Taylor, Madison, Lafayette, Nassau, Washington,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":407,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=407","url_meta":{"origin":393,"position":3},"title":"Washington County: school board #9 on the anti-evolution train","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Washington County school board -- yes, another county in North Florida -- is apparently the latest school board to adopt an anti-evolution resolution. Unfortunately, the school system website doesn't list board meeting agendas anywhere that I could find. I found out about the resolution through one of my regular\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":440,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=440","url_meta":{"origin":393,"position":4},"title":"Anti-evolution resolutions aren’t done yet","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Bay County passed an anti-evolution resolution. The only unique thing here is that one person on the board didn't vote for the resolution, whereas all other resolutions passed unanimously. The majority of board members supported the resolution. Board member Ginger Littleton cast the only dissenting vote. Greg Laden read a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Science Standards"","block_context":{"text":"Our Science Standards","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":434,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=434","url_meta":{"origin":393,"position":5},"title":"Bay County considers anti-evolution resolution","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Guess where Bay County is at in Florida. In the north, you say? How did you ever guess? Why am I writing a post about Bay County? Because the school board is considering an anti-evolution resolution, you say? How did you guess that? Go to the school district's agenda page\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393"}],"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=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}