Juno News - Did the legacy media run cover for “family is racist” teacher training？

00:00:00.000 do you remember back in june i published this article with slides from a 2023 school board

00:00:07.200 teacher pd professional development it was the waterloo district school board and it stated that

00:00:12.800 the family was or the nuclear family was a racist concept rooted in white supremacy

00:00:20.080 and afterwards the board came out swinging after my article on their unpacking whiteness training

00:00:27.600 went viral they issued statements saying my reporting was out of context let's recap on june

00:00:34.640 4th it all started when i published an article for true north on the juno news platform it covered a

00:00:40.000 leak staff training session from the waterloo district school board the session included a

00:00:44.480 slide titled dismantling whiteness at wo which claimed that the word family had been identified

00:00:50.320 as harmful by racialized students the slide said that the term implied obedience hierarchy and the

00:00:56.320 prioritization of the nuclear family to the detriment of others my article went viral it

00:01:02.240 really did strike a nerve with people and the school board which ignored my requests for comment before

00:01:08.160 publication suddenly had something to say but not to me of course on june 6th the waterloo board issued

00:01:16.160 a public statement claiming that my article lacked context but here's the thing i did actually ask for

00:01:24.080 context three times to date i gave them every opportunity to clarify or to explain or even to

00:01:30.880 refute the core of my argument made in the article but they didn't while all this was happening i'd

00:01:37.360 actually posted the entire slide deck on my x account it's still a pinned post they're not there

00:01:42.240 anymore which we'll get to but if you want to see the slides it is currently posted on my sub stack

00:01:48.000 on june 10th the director of education scott miller appeared on the mike farwell show a radio show on city

00:01:54.000 news i invited the director to come on to this show on to disrupted but i haven't heard anything

00:02:01.040 on june 11th the board chair uh madith radlin appeared on cbc radio for an interview well me being

00:02:08.320 me i decided to submit some freedom of information requests and the small fraction that actually did

00:02:15.280 come back doesn't really look good for the board bear with me because today i'm going to walk you

00:02:21.520 through those records and we'll look at what the board told parents and we'll look at the what

00:02:26.000 the board told the media and compare what they told with what they told each other now i definitely

00:02:32.640 have questions and by the end of this episode i suspect you might as well i'm melanie bennett this is

00:02:38.400 disrupted when my article first broke i reached out through all the proper channels i sent requests

00:02:53.920 for comment before publishing and given the reaction two after publishing so two follow-ups and honestly i

00:03:02.800 i am used to being ghosted by school boards and so far i think it's only ever been one school board

00:03:08.240 that's properly responded and even then it was there's nothing to see here sort of comment so i

00:03:13.280 honestly didn't think too hard about the waterloo board's lack of response to me at the time but

00:03:18.800 reading through the documents i obtained i was concerned about the relationship between certain media

00:03:24.960 and the board first the comms officer handling the affair estefania uh did politely decline newsweek

00:03:33.200 uh their their request for comment uh received a polite response from estefania and that tells me

00:03:39.040 that they could have easily politely declined my multiple uh requests for comment but they chose not

00:03:44.880 to you know it's just good manners to let someone know um and there were emails in this package showing

00:03:52.080 that estefania shared um that i'd reached out with other board staff right so they were aware that i

00:03:58.000 was reaching out so why did no one ever respond to me and i think there's other emails in this package

00:04:03.920 this communication foi package that hint at the possible explanation as to why they chose to ghost me

00:04:10.080 specifically director scott miller's executive assistant karen told the communication team that she

00:04:16.880 and the director had had a discussion and they quote will not be responding and that heather from comms

00:04:24.080 quote supports this approach so that's the same heather who i saw copied multiple times on estefania's

00:04:30.720 emails and the ones that showed that i'd been communicating with them so did the communications

00:04:34.960 team had a little internal meeting saying don't talk to her i don't know and that was in response to

00:04:41.520 a request for interview that i'd reached out to the director of education scott miller i was asking

00:04:46.960 him to come onto my show disrupted to talk about um what he'd said on city news but also to describe

00:04:55.120 what he meant by my my articles out of context or i'd taken things out of context because that's the

00:05:00.320 thing that kept getting repeated all the time by the chair by the by the director uh in their communications

00:05:06.000 this out of context so i asked the director to come talk to me and explain to me how i was out of

00:05:10.800 context anyway they obviously didn't want to talk about that and by that time the chair of the board

00:05:17.280 uh maydith radlin had also appeared on cbc radio one's morning show locally so we'll get back to that

00:05:24.960 in a minute so let's talk about the mike farwell show the documents show that mike farwell reached out

00:05:31.760 and i presume that might have been over the phone because i didn't see any emails um to quote offer

00:05:37.200 an opportunity for the board to discuss quote the graphic so that's referring to the actual slide that

00:05:44.480 says families are racist and quote help alleviate concerns from parents why is the media outlet

00:05:51.360 positioning itself as the board's protector why do they need to alleviate why aren't they asking questions

00:05:57.040 because typically the media is supposed to hold power to account anyway i'll remind you my article

00:06:05.280 explains why the idea of that effect that the nuclear family could be racist tracks in education these

00:06:10.400 days and i'm not sure that mike farwell read my article i mean did he if not that's a rather incurious

00:06:16.400 position to take before interviewing somebody who's supposed to be in a position of authority

00:06:21.600 um following what was a huge backlash over teacher training claiming that the nuclear family is a

00:06:28.240 racist construct so why would a journalist offer to reassure rather than get to the bottom of things

00:06:36.320 so to me it seems that farwell even in the interview completely uncritically let the director repeat

00:06:41.840 this claim uh that my reporting was out of context and farwell asked for no context at all the only

00:06:49.440 context that the director provided was a list of strategies and policies like anti-oppression human

00:06:55.920 rights anti-racism but those really when you dig down actually support my reporting it's even in the

00:07:03.680 media brief that estefania prepared for the director so i would encourage you go read my article it's all

00:07:08.800 there i explain why these policies that the director brought up lead to training on why families could be

00:07:15.200 considered racist under this you know culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy which again is

00:07:20.640 just critical theory in practice in an education setting so under this understanding of the world

00:07:26.240 let's recap the nuclear family can easily be conceptualized as a racialized power structure

00:07:32.960 because in the minds of critical race theorists the very idea of a nuclear family was invented by europeans

00:07:41.040 and the europeans imposed this idea on the world and to them if it's european that means that it's

00:07:46.800 racist and that all racism at least how they conceptualize that in their minds and it's messed

00:07:52.240 up but we'll go here must be as they say disrupted and dismantled so disrupting and dismantling racism

00:07:58.960 sounds great but in this case families are racist ergo the nuclear family must be dismantled for

00:08:04.800 everyone to be liberated i mean this is all completely following the logic of critical race theory

00:08:12.080 so if i'm out of context i would love to speak to the director to explain to me how i'm out of

00:08:17.840 context so if these slides reflect the ideological foundations of the training it's built on why don't

00:08:23.520 the journalists do their jobs why are they not asking these questions honestly all the director did

00:08:30.560 was confirm the central argument that i've been making in my reporting that brings me to the cbc oh

00:08:38.320 the beloved cbc how you provide me with endless entertainment and mirth this local reporter kate

00:08:46.880 bukert appears to have an interesting relationship with the board as well uh she didn't go through the

00:08:52.720 proper channels the proper media channels she emailed estefania directly so you remember estefania as the

00:08:58.000 comms point of contact she seemed to be looking after this particular case so kate went straight

00:09:03.440 to estefania she needed to go straight to estefania um she reached out to arrange the chair's appearance

00:09:10.960 on the cbc morning show but as we'll see later i don't know why kate this it seems to me that kate's

00:09:19.520 actually a reporter and if she's not a reporter this is all strange i would urge you to if you're curious

00:09:25.120 go back to part one um the the episode back in june just have a listen of the clips from the

00:09:30.800 chair's interview and the director's interview because they're these journalists are not actually

00:09:36.240 prodding them in any particular way they really are reassuring the public that they're protecting

00:09:40.800 the board and i think it's pretty wild knowing what i know now so who is kate well she um turns out

00:09:49.120 she's she's a cbc journalist she's the one who wrote what feels like a hit piece about my reporting

00:09:56.800 and it really does feel like it was written and designed to discredit my work rather than engage

00:10:02.320 in any level in good faith journalism despite showing a screenshot of my article with my name

00:10:10.160 clearly visible as the author it's right there kate never reached out to me i reached out to everyone

00:10:14.720 that i thought uh was important for my article right i'm as the author of my article she never

00:10:18.800 reached out and i note that the article was last edited june 13th and i'm pretty sure by then i'd

00:10:24.560 already made a complaint that she hadn't reached out to me and the article was it's full of misinformation

00:10:29.680 and from what i can tell all that same misinformation is still in the article unchanged and for some reason

00:10:36.000 kate starts by mentioning rebel news's video reaction to my work so i'm not really sure what

00:10:43.440 rebel's video reaction to my article has anything to do with my work she also repeats this idea that i

00:10:50.960 it doesn't have any context there's a lack of context and then proceeds to say the wildest stuff

00:10:57.680 that has nothing to do with anything i wrote like at all so first kate interviews this uh religious

00:11:06.240 studies academic i guess scholar as an expert she's from alberta not even from ontario

00:11:12.960 it suggests that the parental rights movement had some sort of nefarious i guess undefined blob or force

00:11:18.640 is behind the article okay so weirdly she brings up also gender ideology like what i never talked

00:11:25.840 about gender ideology this is an article that's completely explaining why critical race theory is

00:11:31.520 is behind a lot of this thinking nothing to do with gender ideology and so here's a choice quote from

00:11:38.960 from kate's article lisa gassengardner so that's the academic that kate interviewed says grassroots

00:11:46.320 groups who are part of the movement know how to communicate they say things that seem obviously true

00:11:52.560 like parents should be informed about what their children are learning about in school

00:11:56.480 but then there's this underlying message that the average reader might miss well first of all

00:12:01.680 if you're saying i'm doing this as the nefarious parental rights movement and i know how to

00:12:06.480 communicate i'll i guess i'll take that as a compliment but but which parental rights activists

00:12:12.160 is she even talking about like i said kate never reached out to me to ask any of these questions at

00:12:17.280 all she's just making that claim out there then she writes quote gassengardner says parental

00:12:23.600 rights groups are good at mobilizing and she's seen evidence that they've worked to get people

00:12:29.200 elected to school boards in alberta in ontario what does this have to do with anything that i wrote

00:12:38.320 at all like at all kate clearly did read my article though because she brings in another academic from

00:12:47.360 the university of waterloo to reassure again reassure uh the people uh reading about critical race theory

00:12:54.880 now all i did in my reporting was to explain why certain elements of critical race theory track with

00:13:00.880 this framing um that the nuclear family is a harmful concept to racialized people right or can

00:13:06.000 be viewed that way so again go read my article it's it's all kind of laid out there kate's academic

00:13:12.320 though is saying uh that my analysis of critical race theory is quote a moral panic but aren't the cbc

00:13:20.640 supposed to be unbiased isn't that what we're being told all the time so why if she is unbiased didn't

00:13:27.280 she one reach out to me or two even accurately reflect anything that i actually said in my article

00:13:36.800 even the academics she brought in as experts completely failed to address any of the points

00:13:41.760 that i raised so again did they did those academics read it like what was the point of this article

00:13:47.760 one interesting thing that kate did say is that the school board told her that the uh the presentation

00:13:56.080 was prepared by school board staff so let's examine that claim laura may lindo that name was suddenly

00:14:05.760 thrust center stage almost immediately after my article was published aside from laura's name appearing

00:14:14.080 in the article when i was uh referencing culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy i didn't much

00:14:20.240 focus on her other than quoting her there was a slide but the slide wasn't screenshotted in the article

00:14:26.640 it was part of the package wasn't in the article so why was the board suddenly making uh laura may lindo

00:14:33.200 part of the conversation not just part of the conversation almost central to it and it turns out that

00:14:38.160 the documents that i have reveal everything so let's have a tiny recap of the chair maydith radland

00:14:45.120 making a statement at a board meeting last spring i would like to express regret for the racist hate

00:14:52.080 mail directed at dr laura may lindo she was not involved in the pd session reference but a slide from

00:15:01.200 a presentation she had done in another session was included first of all that's horrible and if

00:15:08.240 people out there are sending hate mail don't do that i would never send anyone hate mail let alone

00:15:13.840 racist hate mail so just don't do that but let's get back to the story the chair said that the slide

00:15:21.840 was in the article um but it wasn't she said it was placed amongst other slides prepared by board

00:15:28.800 educators except the actual slide which i'm showing sharing with you now i hadn't previously shared

00:15:35.920 looks exactly the same as the others did the chair even read my article at all did laura may lindo

00:15:42.480 read my article because regardless laura wrote an email to the trustees and the director

00:15:48.400 a few days after publication of the article and laura said quote in november 2023 by the way that's

00:15:56.000 the date of the slides i was asked to conduct a professional development session with a focus on

00:16:02.080 culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy i was asked to share my slides which i did willingly

00:16:07.600 so here she is here here is laura saying i made that you guys not only did i make those slides

00:16:13.760 the board you guys you guys asked me to create these slides you guys asked me to deliver this

00:16:18.720 training that i produced okay so she's she's writing to the board to say this so who wrote it

00:16:24.240 who wrote this professional development was it the school board staff was it laura may lindo

00:16:29.920 because laura seems to really think that it's her and surely she would recognize her own work

00:16:36.240 now like i said the screenshot of her slide wasn't in the article others were which had the same style

00:16:41.840 and she's writing to the school board going guys you asked me to do this and why is it made public

00:16:46.960 in an article what's going on here the thing i don't understand is that we know at least

00:16:52.160 three different parties were involved somehow you have the board uh educators well that's the claim

00:16:57.680 from from uh nadith radlin then somehow the osstf which i believe i even contacted at the time

00:17:04.480 their branding was on the slides and then you have laura may lindo who's writing to the board saying

00:17:09.440 guys you asked me to do this what's going on so if it wasn't her why why is there this panic from

00:17:16.160 the board and she even got like a personal response from the director of education apologizing to her

00:17:21.440 so weirdly why would she receive hate mail because of a brief mention in my article that literally

00:17:28.720 doesn't have her i mean her name's there but it's not a slide so let me share you exactly the quote

00:17:33.280 from the article that mentions her this is the quote quoting from culturally relevant pedagogy by

00:17:39.520 laura may lindo one slide states that biases are the socialized teachings of the white culture

00:17:46.160 and we use keywords and phrases to promote the dominant culture so nothing makes sense here we still

00:17:53.840 haven't heard anything from any of them at all that explains why they believe the nuclear family

00:18:01.520 is a racist construct and if they don't believe that why they let that training happen and why

00:18:07.440 they're personally apologizing to laura who appears to be the author like i guess then nothing makes

00:18:12.720 sense um but ultimately why does the a journalist like me for example need to go through all of this

00:18:19.520 rigmarole to get the most basic of facts and still not find much clarity all for something that should be

00:18:27.440 readily available for any parent to look at i want to end on this it appears that the board are going

00:18:35.760 to do their very best not to release the slides i am i requested the full deck of slides immediately

00:18:41.760 after this whole thing happened but it looks like they're denying full access just completely and so

00:18:49.200 i'm not exactly sure why though because they've already promised to release the slides let's just

00:18:55.760 watch this clip so this is um trustee cindy watson from the waterloo district school board waterloo

00:19:01.360 region district school board and this is their last uh board meeting november 5th board meeting um

00:19:07.360 so i'll just start mine's shorter whereas the professional development dismantling whiteness

00:19:12.800 at wo has many parents upset and confused and whereas trustees were assured in the past that the

00:19:18.880 tenants of critical race theory were not being taught in wrdsb schools and whereas many concerned

00:19:25.920 parents want transparency and accountability and whereas there was not there wasn't broad consultation

00:19:33.040 for the anti-racism policy therefore be it resolved that the trustees be provided with a written report

00:19:39.200 early in 2025 26 school year that would provide full context and information about the professional

00:19:46.320 development dismantling whiteness at wo school as well as next steps and that the anti-racism policy

00:19:55.520 currently being developed be released to parent councils for broader consultation so i don't typically

00:20:03.440 make the story about me and my reporting but the behavior of this board and the trustees of this board

00:20:11.360 is just too strange i really believe that this is much much more than local drama this is a story

00:20:19.040 about the problems uh with very concerning relationships between state-funded media and what are essentially

00:20:28.240 government institutions so the systems in place to hold government bodies to account so those

00:20:34.560 would be in this case this is the the school board right the trustees they're there to hold the school

00:20:39.360 board to account they're supposed to represent people but it appears that the trustees headed by

00:20:44.720 the chair are protecting the government body and aligning with it rather than holding them to account

00:20:52.080 they're not actually responding to the concerns of the public at all here and then the journalists who

00:20:57.680 should be curious they have they've completely failed in their their number one job which is

00:21:02.400 to be curious and ask difficult questions journalists should be holding uh elected officials like

00:21:09.280 trustees to account they should be holding government institutions like school boards to account but

00:21:14.480 instead as the cbc did they're doing hit pieces on the journalist who's actually doing that job

00:21:20.880 they're not they're not getting to the bottom of anything they're not asking any critical questions

00:21:26.480 so i don't know what's going to happen i suspect there's going to be a part three maybe even in

00:21:32.000 six months from now uh so hold tight we're gonna we're gonna get to the bottom of this story and we're

00:21:37.440 we're going to bring it straight to you so for true north i'm melanie bennett

00:21:56.160 you

Juno News - November 21, 2025

Did the legacy media run cover for “family is racist” teacher training？

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