By Ted McCarron –
During this spring 2022 semester, I substitute taught full-time at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville. The students were mostly well behaved, the staff mostly friendly and the school itself was state of the art. Opened in 1997 it was one of the most expensive high schools in Illinois at the time. It boasts an impressive engineering department, an excellent theater, classes for multiple foreign languages, and other top academic programs.
In many ways Neuqua Valley High School would be a preferable school to send your teenagers to except for one major flaw: it’s nauseating, constant 24/7 woke liberal left-wing propaganda.
Everywhere you go in that school the propaganda is there, particularly homosexual “LGBT” propaganda. You cannot escape it. Homosexual rainbow flag symbols are everywhere including a very large one draping the front desk of one of the main offices when you walk in. In April Neuqua promotes the “Day of Silence” to show solidarity with homosexuals and transsexuals. If for some reason you don’t see one of the huge electronic billboards in the hallway promoting this event with rainbow flag symbols then you’ll definitely hear it over the loudspeaker several times during the daily announcements leading up to that day.
wThe billboard signs themselves include various QR codes instructing the kids on “how to be a good ally” or giving kids instructions on “LGBT Terms and Definitions” and of course a “Guide to Coming Out.” During the actual Day of Silence itself on April 22nd, I didn’t see one single student refuse to talk that day in solidarity with it. While traditionally homosexuals and bisexuals made up 2% to 4% of the general population at Neuqua electronic billboards proclaimed that a whopping 16% of the student body claimed to fall into those groups. I wonder how truly accurate this is but if it is accurate then it’s obviously due to the intense propaganda and brainwashing. I did notice around that time however a homosexual rainbow propaganda flyer ripped to shreds with the pieces soaking wet in the sink of the boys’ restroom.
In order to combat the virtually non-existent problem of bullying of homosexuals the notorious homosexual group GLSEN distributes dozens of “Safe Space” stickers at the teacher mailboxes each year for them to put on their doors supposedly to “protect” homosexual students who are supposedly being oppressed. I found this particularly ironic in light of the highly publicized case of Neuqua student Heidi Zamecnik who fought the school in court a few years ago and won the right to wear her t-shirt that read “My Day of Silence, Straight Alliance” on one side and “Be happy, not gay” on the other. I talked to Heidi myself at that time and she said she had received a lot of bullying from homosexual and liberal students at the school over her stance. Apparently, though none of the staff felt the need to create a safe space for her or other students to share their opinions.
Prominent glass-covered display cases in the hallway never miss an opportunity to showcase some left-wing liberal cause or other. One of them had a montage of pictures showing prominent Asian Americans. Not even pretending to be neutral about the subject however the two biggest pictures front and center was between Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth. Notably absent from this montage were conservative Asian Americans like Michelle Malkin or Andy Ngo. Another display case featured and celebrated the Muslim holiday of Ramadan but none displayed Easter. No surprise there.
Another display case seemed more politically neutral at first glance and was a display of newspapers of famous happenings in history. It included Chicago newspapers showing the JFK assassination, 9/11, the first moonwalk, and other events. But then prominently displayed amongst these was the newspaper for Obama getting elected with his picture gracing the entire front page. Of course, Trump’s election, Reagan’s election or Bush’s election had no such honor in that display case.
When it comes to woke propaganda at Neuqua their school library is absolutely the worst. Like the rest of the school, homosexual propaganda is everywhere. Books such as “This Book is Gay, Queer” and “The Stonewall Riots” grace their shelves while books like “The Summer of Jordi Perez” are prominently displayed front and center on a stand. In the corner of the book’s cover, a review quote declares the book to be “The queer, fat girl rom-com of my dreams!” Similarly “What if it’s Us?” portrays Ben and Arthur as two young homosexuals going through a budding romance together.
Other types of liberal books are displayed as well. “Welcome to the New World” is a graphic novel about a middle eastern immigrant family that “woke up to the world of Donald Trump and soon a Muslim ban that” would separate them from their families overseas. If you’re looking for a more uplifting book, they have others to offer as well such as “The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor.”
However as much as I looked at the shelves, I didn’t see any similar uplifting books about Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Anton Scalia or Samuel Alito. Also displayed was “A Hot Mess: How the Climate Crisis is Changing Our World” and “Spirit Run.” As you walk out of the library you’ll see a World War I style poster that, without the slightest clue of irony, shows Lady Liberty on an old-fashioned phone wearing a face mask and saying “Hello!: This is Liberty speaking —–Masks are needed and needed NOW.”
In one of the teacher’s lounge areas, I looked through their 2021 yearbook. It dedicated a few pages to the major world and national events that happened during that school year. It mentioned Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing without saying a word about her conservative replacement, Amy Coney Barrett. It described the January 6 2021 incident as “rioters supporting Donald Trump storm[ed] the U.S Capitol.” It said that “the insurgents occupied, ransacked and vandalized several places within the Capitol building,” but when it came to the BLM riots that killed far more people and did literally millions of times more damage than the January 6th events, the yearbook showed a picture of them peacefully protesting and simply said, “The Black Lives Matter protests began as citizens marched, fighting for equal rights and racial justice.” There was also a hit piece about Trump’s impeachment and a couple of pieces glamorizing Biden and Harris’s inauguration.
The District 204 website for the teachers and staff was also full of “wokism.” The logo at the top reads “WE ARE 204! EQUITY. DIVERSITY. INCLUSION.”
Some of the bullet points below that include “Implicit Bias-101,” “The culturally responsive teacher: more than just a strategy-101” and “Road map to truly inclusive schools for LGBTQ+ students.” There are also links to videos where CRT-style propaganda is beat into the listener with group discussions or lectures by liberals like Tyrone Howard. Notably missing from this video list are any words of wisdom from Thomas Sowell, Candace Owens or Walter Williams.
A leftist children’s book list is included with books such as “What Are Your Words: A Book About Pronouns” and there’s an entire woke glossary called “204 Equity Terms.” Examples of these terms are “Microaggressions,” “Implicit bias” or “Equity lens” which means “taking on intentional disposition so as to see invisible structures, policies, and behaviors that sustain unequal outcomes…” The overall message is clear, the system is racist and only favors the white man who is inherently racist whether he realizes it or not. In case whites still don’t “get it,” they offer links to entire podcasts promoting the obnoxious book “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.”
What’s really sad and disturbing about all this is that Neuqua Valley High School is only a microcosm of a much bigger problem. It’s merely a case example that I happened to be intimately familiar with. This type of propaganda is in high schools all throughout Illinois as well as the nation. I’ve seen a homosexual rainbow flag hanging up at Joliet West High School and in front of the school district office for DeKalb.
With our state having some of the highest property taxes in the nation it’s a slap in the face to think that our tax dollars are used to promote this. It’s no wonder that parents are either homeschooling their kids, putting them in private schools, or simply fleeing the state. It’s a sign of Illinois decaying not only economically but morally and culturally as well.
Ted McCarron is a board member of the DeKalb County of Illinois Tea Party.
