A Cloverleaf Elementary School mother is threatening to pull her child out of school as a protest against the Common Core curriculum.
Rene Antonio, of Harrisville Township, plans to withdraw her second-grade daughter from Cloverleaf Elementary School on Dec. 15 and she’s hoping other parents will join in her protest.
She started a Facebook page Oct. 24 called “Ohio Students strike commoncore,” which now has more than 300 likes.
“Everyone I’ve talked to about it are against the Common Core,” she said. “We are the parents, we have a say, and if enough people pull their children out of school, they’re going to have to do something about it.”
Common Core is a set of academic standards in math and language arts for grades K-12. The standards have been adopted by most states, including Ohio, in 2010.
Antonio said she’s not sure exactly how many parents are committed to the strike, but she’s received positive feedback from others against Common Core.
“I’m trying to be unbiased on my page because everyone has different reasons for not liking it,” she said. “Children’s minds don’t adapt to the Common Core like they’re expected to. It takes away from the child’s ability to explore.
“These aren’t the government’s children, and they aren’t the state’s children.”
In addition to the Facebook page, Antonio also posted a video on YouTube.com two months ago of her daughter ripping up Common Core math homework and putting it in a bag to give to her teacher.
“The government should not control my education,” the girl said in the video.
Antonio said she decided to set up the strike when she heard that some parents were not letting their children take Common Core tests.
Antonio said she’s already looked at 20 private schools in Medina County as an option for her child, but all of them also have adopted Common Core.
“If it sticks around, it will be everywhere,” she said. “You’ll have to know Common Core to be accepted into college.”
Antonio acknowledged that it was the state of Ohio that adopted the Common Core curriculum and said her protest was not aimed at Cloverleaf schools.
“I just wish the teachers and everyone who’s against this would speak out against it,” she said.
Antonio said she was aware of a proposal, House Bill 597, in the Ohio Legislature to repeal Common Core.
The bill passed the House Rules and Reference Committee but is still short of the 50 votes it needs to move on to the Senate. House Speaker Bill Batchelder, R-Medina, is supporting the bill.
Antonio said she hopes her strike will help passage of the bill.
If Common Core isn’t repealed, she said she would consider home schooling her daughter.
Cloverleaf Superintendent Daryl Kubilus said the school reached out to Antonio on Friday to hear her concerns.
“We welcome and invite parents to discuss any issues they may have with the school’s curriculum,” he said.
Kubilus said he hasn’t heard many complaints about the new curriculum.
“We’ve been preparing for the Common Core. Over the past four years, we’ve had one parent come to one board meeting one time to express displeasure,” Kubilus said.
Kubilus said the district also received two phone calls from concerned parents who had questions about Common Core.
Kubilus said he did not know how badly it would impact the district’s budget if Common Core was repealed in Ohio and the district had to come up with the funding for another curriculum.
The Cloverleaf school district in May was able to pass a 10-year levy, a combined 3.5-mill property tax and 0.75 percent earned income tax. Before the levy started bringing in $4.6 million annually, the district was in a state of fiscal emergency and under the control of a state-appointed Fiscal Oversight Commission for more than two years.
“We are extremely grateful to the taxpayers for passing the levy in May,” he said. “We won’t be looking for new revenue from the taxpayers until at least the 2020s. I don’t want to speculate what a new curriculum implementation would cost.”
Kubilus said that since the district has already invested time, money and resources into Common Core, it would be difficult to drop it now.
“My message to the state has always been, ‘tell me what the expectation is and we will comply,’” he said. “We’re proud of our accomplishments.
“We’ve invested a lot in the training and implementation for Common Core and to just change midstream would be very difficult.”
Antonio said if there is an additional cost to drop Common Core and find something better, that’s a cost “they’re going to have to eat.”
“It’s worth that in order to get things back to the way they were,” she said.
Contact reporter Katie Anderson at (330) 721-4012 or kanderson@medina-gazette.com.
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