fsadmlgnIncidents
On Friday, March 18 a concerned parent group at The Westminster Schools, an elite Atlanta K-12 prep school, posted the following message to their “Wokeminster” Twitter account:
“In 2020, a current Westminster administrator agreed to help get out the vote for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff by “sweeping” student records for eligible voters. Would this behavior be ok under the disclosure teachers must sign?”
Parents speaking with Parents Defending Education say the message was posted to Facebook on Nov. 7, 2021.
Posted with the message was a screenshot of the following exchange on Facebook:
“We need to get the seniors who will be 18 on January 5 registered to vote now! How do we go about that? All hands on deck for Warnock and Ossoff!”
The reply:
“…we got the current seniors registered, so we just need to sweep for any late birthdays.”
The next reply:
“Awesome!”
Facebook exchange mentions the two Democrat party candidates by name and seems to indicate partisan political activity taking place at the school. It also seems to indicate that student records were accessed for political purposes, including checking student birthdays numerous times.
The parent group’s post raises concerns about the “disclosure” teachers at Westminster sign as part of the terms of their employment. The exchange also appears to violate the school’s privacy policy which limits the use of personal student information. The school has been registered as a tax-exempt nonprofit under IRS designation 501(c)(3) since its founding in 1951, which prohibits partisan political activity.
According to a letter written in Sept. 2012 by attorneys for Westminster’s school association, the National Association of Independent Schools:
“Independent schools, as institutions, are strictly prohibited from engaging in partisan political activities.”
The parent group also posted the following letter addressed to the Internal Revenue Service:
The post appears to be a copy of a letter alerting the IRS to the “all hands on deck for Warnock and Ossoff” effort as well as 16 other allegedly partisan political activities, most relating to the 2020 presidental election, they say took place at the school. The letter refers to attached “exhibits” documenting the claims.
The letter states: “The Westminster Schools, Inc. appears to be an ‘action organization’, not operated exclusively for one of [sic] more exempt purposes and not eligible for tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.” The letter requests Westminster donors be notified if donations to the school are no longer tax deductible.
Parents at the school who have spoken with Parents Defending Education have expressed concern about the activism and indoctrination taking place on campus, especially since the killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.
According to documents obtained by Parents Defending Education, in June 2020, Westminster pledged $5 million from its endowment for “anti-racism.”
High schools throughout Atlanta promoted student voter registration efforts in advance of the United States Senate runoff elections in Georgia that took place January 5, 2021. Many Atlanta-area high schools partnered with When We All Vote, an organization co-chaired by Michelle Obama, and participated in the “Good Trouble Voter Campaign” effort to register all eligible high school students. Atlanta Public Schools provides a link on their school district website to Georgia voter registration information. In Georgia, youth can pre-register to vote starting at age 17 years and six months.
On March 25, 2021, Georgia passed the Georgia Election Integrity Act of 2021. The law does not address voter registration for students.
