The Ohio Department of Education is investigating a web-based homeschool community that goals to indoctrinate kids as Nazis — however insiders say the state has little energy to vary the white supremacist curriculum.
The Dissident Homeschool neighborhood — a Telegram channel — was based in October 2021 by Katja and Logan Lawrence, a married couple with 4 kids based mostly in Upper Sandusky, according to a report published last month by the anti-fascist analysis group Anonymous Comrades Collective.
In a dialog final 12 months on the neo-Nazi podcast “Achtung! Amerikaner,” Katja – who goes by “Mrs. Saxon” on the channel – instructed host Gordon Kahl that she began Dissident Homeschool as a result of she “was having a rough time finding Nazi-approved school material for [her elementary-age] homeschool children.”
The Lawrences and their 2,300 followers reportedly use the channel to disseminate overtly racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic lesson plans, together with a number of worksheets which have college students tracing over quotes from Adolf Hitler.
Dissident Homeschool is now the main target of a “compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements” assessment, a state official acquainted with the investigation told CNN this week.
But regardless of the channel’s objectionable materials, the state insider instructed the community that Ohio officers are restricted of their skill to overtake the curriculum.
Under Ohio regulation, the outlet stated, the Department of Education doesn’t assessment or approve homeschool content material.
Parents who homeschool within the state are reportedly solely required to offer yearly written notification and reassurances that features 900 hours of instruction throughout a number of topics, a short define of the meant curriculum and assurance that the trainer has a high-school diploma or the equal.
Even so, officers are scrambling to distance themselves from Dissident Homeschool, with Eric Landversicht, superintendent of the Upper Sandusky Exempted Village School District, writing in a Jan. 30 statement that the district “vehemently condemns” the community’s content material.
Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, instructed CNN that the channel’s “kind of hate has no place in our state.”
While DiMauro stated that Dissident Homeschool’s classes had been “not reflective of the larger homeschooling community,” he admitted that the shortage of accountability for homeschooling households allowed excessive ideologies to infiltrate the system.
“People are choosing to remove themselves and remove their children from the education system,” he stated.
“When that’s the environment you’re in, it opens the door to all kinds of people with all kinds of ideological perspectives to fill that gap.”
Several feedback within the Dissident Homeschool chat mirror DiMauro’s evaluation. According to VICE News
Dr. Stephanie Okay. Siddens, the interim superintendent of Public Instruction in Ohio, issued her own statement on Jan. 30.
“I am outraged and saddened. There is absolutely no place for hate-filled, divisive and hurtful instruction in Ohio’s schools, including our state’s home-schooling community,” she stated.
“I emphatically and categorically denounce the racist, antisemitic and fascist ideology and materials being circulated as reported in recent media stories.”
VICE News’ report additionally famous considerations concerning the Lawrences encouraging Dissident Homeschool members — a few of whom hailed from Norway, Germany and the UK — to take their far-right ideologies offline by becoming a member of native hate teams.
“There is a huge network of people like us,” Katja reportedly wrote of the household’s choice to hitch secretive “pool parties” hosted by the white supremacist group The Right Stuff.
“We joined a pool party and our children now play with other white children where they can speak and play freely,” she gushed.
But whereas the potential outcomes of the DOE investigation stay unclear, the Lawrences have already confronted pushback from others within the Upper Sandusky neighborhood.
Earlier this week, WTVG reported that the Wyandot County Sheriff’s Office denied rumors that members of the Dissident Homeschool community had been affiliated with the workplace.
Sheriff Todd Frey clarified this week that some reported members might have labored “with or for” an organization that designed the division’s web site nearly a decade in the past.
“We, like all decent people, are disgusted and appalled that outliers in our community are teaching hatred and contempt to the most vulnerable among us, our children,” he assured residents.
CNN also reported Thursday that Logan Lawrence was not affiliated together with his household’s insurance coverage company following an announcement from the corporate denouncing the couple’s conduct as “disturbing and secretive.”
“The viewpoints & ideology recently expressed by Logan Lawrence and his wife in no way represent the values of Lawrence Insurance Agency,” the assertion learn.
“We emphatically denounce what they have said and done & we wholeheartedly empathize with all who have been hurt, upset, and disturbed by their conduct.”
nypost.com
