'Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.' - Dr. Seuss
For my son's 18th Birthday, I wanted to do something special. I thought about the past 17 birthdays and the moments when he seemed most happy. After searching the Mom memory bank, I concluded, "He loves speed." So, I asked him, "Do you want to skydive for your Birthday present?" Without hesitation, he looked at me and said, "Yes! That sounds cool."
Before we headed out, I told him, "Since you are 18, you must sign the waiver. You are legally responsible for everything you do." I said, "There is a chance you or I could die?" He thought about it for a quick second and asked, "Is the risk of dying in a skydiving accident greater or less than the risk of COVID?" I replied, "It's slightly higher. You have a .001% chance of dying of COVID. And you have a .5% chance of dying in a skydiving accident. He paused briefly and said, ".5% - That's a little higher than I thought." I said, "That means you have a 99.5% chance of surviving. I told him, "Tandem skydiving is the ultimate trust fall." And then, with my dark sense of humor, I added, "As long as we don't get a sociopath divemaster with a death wish, we should be fine." I then elaborated on all the other possible unknowns and said, "There could be an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), in which case the plane could crash, and then we would all be dead." He looked at me, raised one brow, and signed the waiver.
In the ideal, perfect world, everyone would choose between independent risks and benefits when making life decisions. We would recognize that there are trillions of unknown variables in matters of life and death, and we should all do what's best for our family. - How American.
As a Mother who was once a child living in a home whose Dad was dying of Huntington's Disease and whose Mom suffered from chronic episodes of depression and other health issues, I made a promise long ago that when I became a Mom, I would teach my kids how to live with joy and understand the truth, "Tomorrow is never promised." In our house, we believe we are co-creators of our Destiny. We refuse to co-parent with the Government or people on Nextdoor. I am conscious and aware of every parenting decision. I have never and would never take a risk with my children's lives without first carefully analyzing the data and pros and cons. When the Government shut down our schools in California and then told us, "Stay home to protect the vulnerable," I knew something insane was happening. Never in my lifetime, living in America had healthy people been quarantined or assumed sick and contagious.
Convincing people that their next-door neighbors were infected with Tuberculosis and other contagious diseases is what the Nazis did through their mass propaganda campaign to dehumanize the Jews. But, I learned the hard way pointing out the obvious was not popular. And, when I did post on Facebook, "I am immune," I was flagged for spreading misinformation. I tried to sell a shirt with a picture of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the bold letters IMMUNE and Facebook threatened to delete my account and instructed me to take down the picture of the shirt. Facebook openly admitted there reasons for censoring free speech. It is clearly written in their policies: "Facebook is running the largest worldwide campaign to promote authoritative information about COVID-19 vaccines." They partnered with governments in more than 120 countries, as well as multilateral organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, to control the minds of humans and sell the most dangerous gene therapy in history.
Then, every open grocery store stuck stickers on the floor that read, "Please maintain social distancing; stand six feet apart." Six feet was the arbitrary and capricious distance the experts thought the virus could spread but the experts didn't agree. The CDC said it was six, and WHO said it was three. Later, the experts discovered what we already knew: viruses are everywhere - always have been and always will be, hence the term "airborne." Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti, in a press conference, said, "Don't share your air." It was straight out of The Lorax. If he could have sold and bottle clean air for billions in profit he would have. And, then, at the SuperBowl, he was caught on camera standing next to Magic Johnson without his mask on. When people went mad about it, he defended himself and said, "I was holding my breath." In March of 2023, Garcetti was relocated to New Delhi, just like the Catholic Church did to pedophiles. Instead of locking him up, Vice President Harris swore him in as the U.S. Ambassador for India, and we haven't heard from him since.
The Government, with its teams of pharmaceutical experts and the media, effectively convinced people to be afraid of the air. And, worse, they created enemy images by convincing people to fear someone else's air."
Sick until Proven Uninfected
As the orders became increasingly unbelievable, the World Health Organization, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The NIH, The Public Health Departments, paid celebrities, and the Mainstream Media repeated the mantra, "New normal."
To know who was on whose side was easy; on one side were the people who thought it was perfectly normal to stand six feet apart on a sticker, ask for a vaccine card, and follow orders. Then, there were Moms like me, who double dared their kids to take off their masks at the grocery store and run the wrong way down the food aisle. I dared my kids to unfollow the "new" rules because I believed that the risks of living in fear, of giving up our First Amendment Rights, Government Censorship, closing schools, and telling people to live in fear of others and follow Government Orders were far greater than the risk of COVID.
On August 11, 2021, Save P.V. Schools began out of the necessity to spread the truth. The truth is our School District and all Los Angeles Public schools lied to the public, but they believed the lies so they were convincing in their indoctrination plan to assist the Government in rolling out the New Vaccines. The Biden Administration spent millions on the "WE CAN DO THIS CAMPAIGN." They used our tax dollars to pay for television ads and social media ads, and they paid faith leaders to indoctrinate their congregation to believe their God-given immunity was weak and the pharmaceutical agents superior.
The trusted community leaders felt entitled to demand we give up medical informed consent rights under the illusion of the Greater Good. And, worse than that, they took an unnecessary risk with our children's lives when they marketed, promoted, and distributed the COVID-19 vaccine and the test kits on school grounds.
In Palos Verdes, the Superintendent, Dr. Cherniss, updated the public about state and L.A. county policies every two weeks for two years. While he expressed in private to me, he thought the ongoing mandates were ridiculous. He made no public attempt at a School Board Meeting to sway the Board's opinions. The Superintendent had private meetings with his approved medical advisory team, including Dr. Clayton Kazan and Dr. Sher. LA County hired Kazan to ramp up COVID testing and force Firefighters to get vaccinated. Dr. Sher sat with the Superintendent and the board behind closed doors, and together, they conspired on how to get everyone vaccinated. Meanwhile, Dr. Sher was conducting clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccines, and The Palos Verdes Medical Clinic had the most densely populated COVID testing site on the hill. It was right on top of the parking lot at the Palos Verdes Shopping Center. (The lot is now closed, and recently, the facade of the building fell off - NO JOKE).
On 6/23/2021, all School Board Members voted yes to approve the contract between the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) and the District to participate in School-Based COVID-19 Testing. Without hesitation, they accepted $1,766,305 to test children and staff for a virus that had already infected everyone and would be just like rhinoviruses (the common cold). They called it "free," but we were paying for it. Then, The District agreed to report every test done on children, athletes, and staff on the 15th of each month to The Los Angeles County Office Of Education, which enabled the County to keep case numbers high and maintain totalitarian rule over our kids' lives with their capricious and arbitrary mask mandates. The Biden Administration conspired to spend $1.9 trillion to promote vaccines and then fix the damage that was done as a result of an open border policy for illegal immigrants and a mandatory stay at home rule for American Citizens.
They invaded our kids' privacy, pushed a gene therapy with no long-term studies, and targeted the unvaccinated, and not too many people seemed to mind, but we did.
We cared a whole awful lot.
On August 11, 2021, over 80 parents had enough of the two weeks to flatten the curve, and we were sick and tired of being told to follow orders that didn't make sense. We met at Olmsted Place in Palos Verdes. In the early 1900s, Frank Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank of NY from 1909-1919, envisioned Palos Verdes as a unique place to gather friends and family.
During the shutdown, the Democrats told us to stay home and while we were home they created plans that will destroy our town if no one cares a whole awful lot. They created the Density Bonus Laws to encourage developers to destroy towns like Palos Verdes by building cheap houses, under the lie that building affordable homes will save the homeless population. The Democrats incentivize Developers to build high-density cheap homes by offering up to 20% to 50% in density bonuses on top of the base density bonus, provided that at most 50% of the total units would be restricted as affordable. The new zoning laws were created while people worried about COVID. And, not too many people will notice until the bulldozers roll in.
Early on, we hoped to convince the Board that accepting $2 million and another $15 million of Tax Money as a reward to promote the COVID-19 vaccine was morally and ethically wrong. But the School Board refused to hear another viewpoint about masks, COVID-19, vaccines, and the damage of the stay-at-home order. Not only did school board members Linda Reid, Ami Gandhi, and Rick Phillips walk out on parents at a school board meeting, but afterward, Linda Reid tried to get the Palos Verdes Police Department to arrest us. The P.V. City Council got involved and refused since no mask law existed, and there was no penal code for them to enforce. Our only crime was questioning the orders.
Typically, in order for the FDA to approve a new drug or vaccine the Gold Standard and most reliable studies is a double-blind placebo-controlled trial. This means that patients are randomly assigned to receive either the treatment, in this case a vaccine, or placebo. It takes years to understand the long-term effectiveness and potential side-effects of a new vaccine. But Pfizer set out a plan in which volunteers who got the placebo were told they got the placebo, unblinding the experiment and then they told the volunteers if they wanted the vaccine they could go and get it wherever it offered. Obviously there was no control group left in the study. The general population became the long term study. The Pfizer study was fast-tracked at WARP SPEED, and mere 13 months after trial initiation, the vaccine became the first FDA approved COVID-19 vaccine on August 23, 2021. Typically, vaccines require 10 to 15 years of research and testing.
Governor Gavin Newsom lied over and over again. Who could forget that he got the Johnson and Johnson Vaccine in a live press conference, stating, "One and done"? I guess a lot of people are still suffering from trauma-induced amnesia.
Throughout the pandemic, the local trusted authorities and the school board didn't even read the list of side effects on the vaccine package inserts, and what was worse was that they mocked the parents who did their own research.
Palos Verdes School Board Member Richard Phillips openly discussed "finding the parents who weren't vaccinating their kids" and "educating them." Phillips did this as he sat at home on Zoom and then later, behind a plexiglass box with two masks on and another dangling from his chin. Our School Board and Former Superintendent created a climate of fear and hostility toward the unvaccinated, so much so that even today, Teachers feel safe to post public comments like this one from Michelle Burney. She's an online distance learning teacher, and she wrote on December 13, 2023, for the public to see, "Others have issues with being in person with non-vaccinated students." How could anyone in their right mind, after witnessing the vaccinated people getting severely sick with COVID and other strange autoimmune deficiency disorders, still proclaim as if it's a fact that the unvaccinated are the problem?
As an organization, Save P.V. Schools, LLC did what we could to fight the mask mandates, the testing mandates, and vaccine mandates. Together with other parents, we showed up at school board meetings, risking being attacked by the COVIDIAN mob who demanded we trust their chosen experts. We filed two lawsuits. One Lawsuit survived for two years until finally, the Judge ruled that the mask mandate was over, so he could not rule against an order that did not exist. While we lost in Court on a misinterpretation of reality, and we could appeal, we have decided it's time to move on and let Karma do what Karma does. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For three years, our School District promoted FREE breakfasts, free lunches, free COVID tests, and FREE vaccines, and they are now suffering the reactions from perpetuating a lie that everything is free. They infringed on parent's rights to make medical decisions for their children and a whole lot of parents pulled their kids from the District because of it and now enrollment continues to decline. When students leave the District loses money with each child.
At the last Board Meeting on December 13, 2023, the Board discussed the poor condition of the school buildings and the need for more funding. Assistant Superintendent Brenna Torres said, "We are reaching a critical milestone where our infrastructure is failing." In addition to seismic issues, the buildings have been rat-infested for years. Everything comes with a price to pay; there are consequences for actions. Not sometimes - always, and Linda Reid and Ami Gandhi spent too much time focusing on who was vaccinated and how to make health decisions for our kids and, obviously, not enough time making sure there weren't rats in the walls and bricks falling off of ceilings.
I have seen and heard enough to know we have reached a critical milestone where things must change. The General Public is catching on to just how bad the insanity has gotten. As for me, I am no longer motivated to make public statements but rather have decided to meet up privately with those with power. Recently, I met with the new Superintendent of PVPUSD, Dr. Serrano. After two long conversations where she let me speak for a couple of hours, much better than the three minutes I get at a School Board Meeting, I concluded quickly that she is a good person with a whole lot of empathy. She seems to understand why and how the District has lost students and the trust of Parents like me. She knows she has to earn trust. I told her, "We filed multiple public records requests, many of which went unanswered until you arrived." She said, "That's illegal." I agreed with her and I said, "I know." After our lengthy discussion, she said she wanted to get me on Board with helping to promote a Bond Measure to fix the schools. I asked, "How bad are they really? Like could they fall down in an Earthquake?" She nodded her head yes, and then said, "They are really bad." She sees that Save PV Schools has an influence on people in Palos Verdes. Because of her kindness, I thought about the possibility of working together since our schools are in disrepair and we could lobby California Legislatures to give us our fair share. But I have no faith or trust in three of five school board members, Linda Reid, Ami Gandhi or Sara Deen.
Linda Kurt is great. I initially campaigned against her but she earned my respect by showing integrity and the ability to engage in critical thinking, unlike what I saw from Gandhi and Reid. I still have hope in Julie Hamill, who now sits on our Board. She won her seat because she fought against the mask mandates and she is still fighting the good fight against LA County for censoring the science. She alone, certainly can't save our schools but she sure is trying.
Over the Holy Days, I spent much time reflecting on the amount of investigative work I have done into the public school system, specifically Palos Verdes. Over the years, I have read every public record request, watched every board meeting, read inside emails from the PV Faculty Leader, and as a result, I have no faith or trust in the school system as it currently exists. In addition to the California Teachers Union acting as an arm of the Democratic Party, there is a handful of parental activists in our town who happen to be the same people who demanded we give up medical informed consent rights. They have now moved on to demanding we read books about girls becoming boys. They want transgender girls to have access to the girl's restrooms and when a former Male Teacher showed up dressed as a woman to teach little kids and wrote his instagram profile page on the board along with an illustration describing his gender identity confusion, the group of parents went nuts when they heard the teacher was not invited back to sub. They claim to be the party of love and inclusion, but in fact, they are delusional and deranged. They are pushing for policies that enable children to have sex changes and calling it "Care."
The Democrats have called us Book Banners, Science Deniers, Bigots, anti-vaxers, conspiracy theorists, Christian Nationals, extremists, and white supremacists. They went too far when they crossed the line and messed with our kids, and now, they want us to pay more taxes to fund surgeries for illegal immigrants, among other insane things, and they also are promoting another Bond Measure. Their attacks started in 2016 and peaked to a new level of cruel and unusual punishment at the start of COVID and they are only getting worse and more insane. Their lies are infinite, and the Devil does not sleep.
At first, I thought we could Save Our Public Schools, but then, I discovered, they put tampons in the boys' bathrooms. Who does that? At Ridgecrest it was Jaime Mancilla who did that. He's the same guy that singled out every unvaccinated child without hesitation and sent them to eat alone at lunch because that was the one time they weren't wearing a mask. When I called him out on how ridiculous that was he said, "We have to protect the vulnerable." There are Principals and teachers who openly support Marxist Communist Organizations funded by The Tides Foundation. I have shown them the GSA Blueprint but they don't seem to care that they are promoting organizations the perpetuate the lie that America is a white-supremacist racist Country.
The Democrats demonize parents who don't want their children reading sexually graphic books at school and twist it around to depict as anti-GAY, and ignore the facts that a whole lot of Gay people don't want their teachers reading books about lesbian girls deciding life will be better living as a boy.
The truth is that the Public School System operates as a Tax Funded Monopoly. It maintains exclusive possession and control of the information. Parents who are unhappy with the public school system, or upset about tampons in the boys' restrooms, often have no choice but to tolerate unfair practices, gender ideology, mandatory vaccinations, and other insanity. Transformation is necessary. And only then can we hope for saving.
The public school system is no longer worthy of salvation. We need a transformation of education in America, a Renaissance, a rebirth, and a renewal of an inspirational education system that belongs to the free market.
The best way to put our children first is to Give all Parents their legal right to an individualized education program (IEP). Traditionally, the Public Schools get paid about $15 grand per student who enrolls in the school. Private schools can't compete with "free schools." But they would have a fighting chance if every parent was given a $15,000 credit to be used at a school of their choice. Then, the parents can choose from every academic institution, level the playing field, let the best schools win, and let the best and brightest students race to the success line.
SCHOOL CHOICE
In 2000, California Proposition 38 was on the ballot. It was initiated as a constitutional amendment in California on November 7, 2000. If it had passed it would have enabled parents to choose where to send their kids to school. It was defeated.
The annual impact of school choice - likely to range from costs of about $2 billion to savings of over $3 billion, depending on the number of pupils who shift from public schools to private schools.
Debt service savings to the state and school districts potentially in excess of $100 million annually after 10 years to 20 years, resulting from reduced need for construction of public schools.
Potential loss of federal funds in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Greatest redistribution of wealth out of Government hands and into individual families
Revenues for public schools in California currently total $127.6 billion. The largest source of funding is an allotment of state General Fund and local property revenue set aside for schools under the Constitution. This allotment accounts for nearly 75 percent of the total funding for public schools ($16,340 per student).
In 2022, — The California School Choice Initiative needed 1 million voters' signatures to be placed on the election ballot; the campaign fell short but they have not quit in their efforts to create a free-market education system and they plan to try again in 2024.
INITIATIVE MEASURE TO BE SUBMITTED DIRECTLY TO THE VOTERSThe Attorney General of California has prepared the following circulating title and summary of the chief purposes and points of the proposed measure:
21-0006A1
Requires state to provide yearly voucher payments ($14,000 initially, adjusted annually) into Education Savings Accounts for K-12 students attending religious and other private schools.
Funds payments through General Fund and local property tax revenues currently allocated to public (including charter) schools.
Eliminates constitutional prohibition on public funding of religious and other private schools.
I am now sitting here in 2024, three years later since we first heard of the coronavirus, and I am looking forward to what I plan to do next. After going Skydiving with my son two days after Christmas, a few weeks of serious soul searching, and then the recent passing of my Father-In-Law, I have decided I don't want to spend my time trying to Save PV Schools. My Father-In-Law passed away at 94. We missed seeing him for two and a half years because we shared different fundamental beliefs about vaccines and about following orders. But we never argued or fought. We simply facetimed him to stay in touch. When he felt safe to see us, we flew to New Jersey over the summer to be with him. We gave him hugs and kisses and not one person in the retirement village was wearing a mask anymore. It was evidence to me that it's time to move on from all things COVIDIAN. We took him out for lunch. Since he loves Italian wine we bought the best bottle. The reason we could do that with him, with nothing but love, after all this time is because neither of us demanded we give up our beliefs for the other. We stayed in our lanes knowing we see things differently and that was ok. We simply agreed to disagree, didn't talk about vaccines, and we practiced acceptance for what was. Five months later, he passed away slowly, not of COVID but of the gradual slowing of his heart beat and organ systems and then suddenly his heart stopped. That's how we are all going to die, we die when our heart stops beating. It's left me feeling the relativity of time and the reminder of just how precious life is.
Saving PV Schools is no longer the battle I want to fight. I will continue to share the truth, hoping it will set people free. I will invest my time and energy into a free education system in which parents can decide which school aligns with their values and hopes and dreams for their individual child or children.
It's time to defund public education and hold schools accountable for promoting beliefs that destroy our children's hopes and dreams. We need to fund families. The Public Schools crossed a line when they shut their doors and then demanded we give up our beliefs and roll up our sleeves and inject our kids with a gene therapy.
As for me, I won't be taking time away from my family to attend any more school board meetings. Rather I am planning more fun adventures for 2024 with my family and with the tribe of women I met, thanks to the Totalitarian Regime. I am proud of how we navigated the COVID storm together.
In conclusion, I will always be the kind of mom who shares her air, stands close to strangers to make new friends, and without hesitation, jump out of an airplane to see my kid smile. And, if anyone should ever try to cover my kids' faces again....well, that's a story for another day.
Stay Free,
Erin DiMaggio