This is a local cartoon drawn for the Fredericksburg Advance on the Spotsylvania County School Board.
the Spotsylvania School Board garnered national attention over the past few years with one example being this Associated Press story and and another from Huff Post concerning the school board not just removing books, but one member proposing to burn them and another saying he’d like to see the books before burning them.
Last April, school board member Rabih Abuismail argued that public schools want kids to read more about “gay pornography” than about Jesus Christ. This idiot is on a school board and doesn’t understand that it’s not a public school’s job to teach about Jesus Christ and advance zealotry. There should be a requirement in this country that to run for a seat on a school board, the candidate must understand the First Amendment, the Establishment Clause, and the separation of Church and State. The good news is that Abuismail didn’t run for reelection and is out the door.
The superintendent of Spotsylvania County Public Schools, Mark Taylor, answer to a budget shortfall was to propose shutting down all school libraries. That would save them the trouble of going through all the books to pick out the ones that indoctrinate children to be gay drag queens and teach them about slavery. A few days after that proposal, Taylor announced that 14 books were removed for “sexually explicit content.”
Virginia state law requires that schools have libraries on their campuses. It would seem a superintendent of public schools would know this. Taylor was hired by the school board and given a $245,000 annual salary despite having ZERO work experience with public schools. He didn’t even send his own children to public schools. Before he got the job, he suggested that parents remove their children from public schools. One of his children whom he “educated” with homeschooling pleaded with the school board not to hire her father, writing to the school board, “For many, many years there was very little to do with any kind of textbook learning. To this day, I still feel like there are a lot of holes in my education.”
Kirk Twigg, another outgoing member, said he’d like to see the books before burning them “so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.” Twigg lost his reelection attempt and is also facing charges of forgery and tampering with public records.
The school board removed 23 more books last October.
Santa better be careful this Christmas when going down chimneys in Spotsylvania.
Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.
Tales From The Trumpster Fire: I have one copy left and you can order it, signed by me, for $45.00. You can pay through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.
Knee-Deep In Mississippi: There are only 16 copies left of my first book, published in 1997. These can be purchased for $40.00
Tip Jar: If you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.
Watch me draw:
CLAYTOONZ 
When you are out and about in Fredericksburg, be careful that you don’t get hit by any smoldering book embers. They could burn a hole in your jacket. 😉🔥
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
🇺🇸November 5th, 2024.
🇺🇸Save the Date.
🇺🇸Save the Country.
🇺🇸*Susan B_A from Resistanceville
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
LikeLiked by 4 people
Holy Smokes. Spotsville is close to Pottsville from Rocky and Bulwinkle. I guess some of the folks there are living out a cartoon fiction.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I’m not sure why we have school boards. I don’t know if other countries have them, but it seems as if public school board members in the U.S. are parents or people hoping to rise in politics rather than educators, yet they have a great deal of power over administrators and thus over teachers and outcomes. Some school board members have used this power to advocate for their children’s academic “success” by pressuring administrators to punish teachers who grade accurately, if accuracy in grading means their children don’t look as exceptional as they would like to believe they are. I think we could stand to take a second look at why we have school boards and whether or not we should keep them in their current state.
LikeLiked by 4 people
And, as the ISDs, decide wholly on what children K-12 reads, there would be, no more, fitting reading materials for the students, because there are always something that, offend, somebody, and, the next generations, future leaders of, tomorrow will not know, how to, read, let alone, make the, sound decisions, and, to think, these illiterates will be, leading the, country, can’t imagine how bad it’ll be…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not sure which one I like best, the Spotsy Book Burning or Trump’s White Christmas. Love them both! Spot(sy) on!
LikeLiked by 1 person
And, with these, extreme, cosevatives on the, school boards, the students can kiss classics like Romeo & Juliet (under age sex of, minors???), The Crucible (adultery???), Frankenstein (as Victor DEFIED God by, creating, life using, scientific, means), and, a lot of the, real, classics, goodbye, and, without access to, all of these, the students would never, have, the, diversities of ideas, nor would they have that, needed, respect for, others who aren’t, like, them…and, America would be, DEAD!
LikeLiked by 1 person