An important school board group is unraveling after it sent a letter to Biden likening threats against school officials to ‘domestic terrorism and hate crimes’

• The National School Boards Association compared threats to school leaders to "domestic terrorism."
• The message, and Attorney General Merrick Garland's swift response, backfired.

The National School Boards Association wanted to help protect education leaders from threats of violence and acts of intimidation that were playing out across the nation.

So its leaders penned a controversial letter — one they'd later regret — to President Joe Biden, asking the feds to step in against threats the group compared to "a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes."

That message, and Attorney General Merrick Garland's swift response, only led to more mayhem, inflaming parents, and gift wrapping talking points for Republicans eager to use the issue as a springboard back to power in 2022 and 2024.

Welcome to the culture wars of 2021, where a skirmish enveloping state school board associations across the nation has education leaders fed up and finding ways to distance themselves from the group and its hot mess.

"Unfortunately, the NSBA needlessly caused substantial controversy this fall, which has negatively impacted relationships among school boards, parents and community members," wrote The Wisconsin Association of School Boards, which voted in November to withdraw participation in the NSBA programs and activities.

In all, associations in 27 states have distanced themselves from NSBA since that late September letter to Biden. Seventeen of those states have taken further steps, by either withdrawing membership, participation, or dues, according to the latest tracking by Parents Defending Education, an organization that says it fights "indoctrination" in the classroom.

"We would have readily pointed out the mischaracterization of parents and patrons in our communities as domestic terrorists who merited federal investigation," the Idaho School Boards Association wrote in its response, which said they had not been asked for input on the letter.

"We want parents and patrons engaged in our public schools – we have sought that for years," the Idaho group added.

'Domestic terrorism and hate crimes'

The NSBA is a nonprofit that has operated since 1940 as a federation of state associations (and the US Virgin Islands), advocating for public school board leaders. As wild parent protests at school board meetings grabbed headlines, the group and AASA, the School Superintendents Association raised alarms about threats and violence around COVID-19 guidelines at the beginning of the school year.

Later, in their September 29 letter to Biden, NSBA said school boards members have been attacked for face-mask policies and threatened over false claims about "critical race theory" being taught in K-12 classrooms.

The advocacy group did not characterize parents in the letter as "domestic terrorists," as has been reported, but they asked for federal assistance against threats, and requested a review examining enforceable actions under a host of federal statutes, including the post-9/11 PATRIOT Act in regards to domestic terrorism.

"As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes," the letter from the group's president Viola Garcia and Chip Slaven, who was then the interim executive director.

NSBA did not respond to a request for comment.

Weeks later, NSBA apologized on Oct. 22 to its members for writing the letter, saying "there was no justification for some of the language" in it. But Garland, who in a memo called on the FBI to address illegal threats against public servants, defended his response during a Senate Judiciary Committee.

"The only thing that Justice Department is concerned about is violence and threats of violence," he said, according to CNN.

Republicans, hoping to be viewed as the party of parents in the midterm elections, have seized on the controversy. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, of California, issued an October 5 statement in response to Garland's memo, saying Democrats want to "silence parents, and prevent them from having a say in their own children's education."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 GOP presidential contender, said in a statement, "We don't need the federal government investigating and intimidating parents in an attempt to squelch dissent." The Florida School Boards Association withheld their dues in July over various concerns with NSBA and stated in an October 11 letter that they would continue to do so.

Former President Donald Trump weighed in on the issue, too, with Fox News' Sean Hannity, saying parents don't want "all of this nonsense that's being fed to their children," and "they're trying to make them out to be terrorists … How crazy is this?"

Erika Sanzi, outreach director for Parents Defending Education, told Insider her group had "major concerns" about what seemed like a deliberate attempt to intimidate parents and the DOJ's quick response, giving NSBA what they wanted. But she said she's glad the NSBA letter backfired.

"There's moms out there, right, that are like wearing domestic terrorist T-shirts now in response to that letter as a way of saying, 'I am not going to be silenced. I am going to speak out about my concerns at my kids' school,'" she said. "They're taking that domestic terrorist accusation and they're having fun with it."

'Fractured relationships'

School board associations acknowledged in their statements that education leaders do indeed face threats. The Idaho association pointed to "disruptive and – at times, frightening – behavior" at school board meetings in the state and across the country.

But some groups said it was "overreach" to ask for federal law enforcement intervention when local law enforcement should handle protests, and they were angry that they were not consulted about the letter.

The Missouri School Boards' Association, which withdrew from NSBA, said federal intervention in most cases shouldn't be the first step and it runs contrary to their tradition of local control.

"Further, the use of inflammatory terms in the NSBA letter is not a model for promoting greater civility and respect for the democratic process," the statement said. While the apology was a "step in the right direction," the Missouri association wrote that NSBA has "significant work ahead" to prevent similar problems and repair their "fractured relationships."

States may have decided to leave the group for reasons beyond their letter to Biden, Brian Farmer, executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association, wrote in a letter to members.

Farmer noted that NSBA has been struggling with "internal governance issues." Rather than withdraw from NSBA, the Wyoming association's board decided to continue to "monitor the situation" and not automatically renew their membership.

The Pennsylvania School Boards Association withdrew from NSBA for multiple reasons, according to a letter to its members reported by The Hill, but the controversy over the letter "suggesting that some parents should be considered domestic terrorists was the final straw."

The NSBA letter "fomented more disputes and cast partisanship" on their work on behalf of school directors, the Pennsylvania association wrote.

"Now is not the time for more politics and posturing, it is the time for solutions to the many challenges facing education," they wrote.