NSBA chief had advance notice of DOJ's controversial school board memo: email

[Garland Gestapo]

FIRST ON FOX: The head of the National School Boards Association (NSBA)
had advance notice of Attorney General Merrick Garland's controversial
memo about protecting school boards, a top NSBA official confided in an
email reviewed by Fox News Digital.

"I understand Chip [Slaven] knew about the A.G. directives before they
were published. So much for communicating with the BOD [Board of
Directors]," NSBA southern regional director Pam Doyle wrote in an Oct. 5
email to Beverly Slough, who sits on the NSBA Board of Directors.

Slaven was the NSBA's CEO at the time. Doyle's email came one day after
Garland's memo.

The email was obtained by Parents Defending Education, a pro-parents
group, in a public records request and shared with Fox News Digital.

"The American people deserve the truth about this issue immediately. It is
appalling that the Department of Justice and Education Department have
continued to stonewall on this scandal, ignoring pleas not only from the
very people they are supposed to represent but also from the elected
officials to whom they report. It's little wonder that trust in government
is at a historic low point," PDE President Nicole Neilly told Fox News
Digital.

SENATE REPUBLICANS PROBE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, DOJ OVER NSBA LETTER,
GARLAND MEMO

"The National School Boards Association (NSBA) is launching an independent
comprehensive review of the circumstances around the September 2021 letter
sent to the Biden administration. The sentiments shared in the letter do
not represent the views or position of NSBA toward parents, and directly
contradict our core commitment to parent engagement – we sent the wrong
message, and we have apologized," Dr. John Heim, the NSBA's new executive
director and CEO, told Fox News Digital on Monday.

"The review will be conducted by Philip Kiko, an attorney and the former
Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives under
two different Speakers, and the law firm Michael Best & Friedrich. The
review will seek to address as many questions as possible, and NSBA will
share the findings with their members and the Hill as quickly as possible.
We take this matter seriously and will continue to take appropriate
action," Heim added.

The email is the latest indication of coordination between the Biden
administration and the NSBA on the school board group's letter that
compared parent protests to domestic terrorism, and the subsequent Justice
Department memo pledging to devote more law enforcement resources to
protecting school boards.

Garland testified later in October that the NSBA letter was the basis for
his memo. Although the NSBA apologized for, and later retracted, the
letter after backlash, Garland has stood by his memo.

Fox News Digital previously reported that Education Secretary Miguel
Cardona solicited the NSBA's letter, according to an email from a top NSBA
official.

The Education Department previously denied that Cardona did, in fact,
solicit the letter, but still has yet to explain the discrepancy between
their denial and the email's contents.

Both the NSBA letter and Garland's memo generated intense blowback from
parent groups and Republican lawmakers.

State-level school board groups quickly sought to distance themselves from
the NSBA, with dozens of them formally leaving the association.

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A DOJ spokeswoman declined to answer Fox News Digital's request for
comment, pointing instead to Garland's Senate testimony in which he said
he wasn't aware of conversations between the DOJ and the NSBA.

A White House official previously told Fox News that the White House
didn't order Garland to write the memo, saying: "DOJ chose to take this
approach on their own."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nsba-advance-notice-doj-controversial-
school-board-memo-email