Grassroots and Political Action During Tough Times with Natalie Hastings

[0:01] This is Glass City Humanist, a show about humanism, humanist values, by a humanist. Here is your host, Douglas Berger. In this episode, our guest is Natalie Hastings from Honesty for Ohio Education, and we talk about grassroots organizing, church and state separation, and the unaccountable voucher scheme being used to gut public education in Ohio. Glass City Humanist is an outreach project of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, building community through compassion and reason for a better tomorrow.

[0:36] Music.

[0:59] All right. Our guest today is Natalie Hastings. She is an organizer for Honesty for Ohio Education, a group that I currently work with for disclaimer purposes. And she also works with the Ohioans Against Extremism, which is a relatively new group that just came about. Her background is she’s a public relations pro from the Cincinnati area. And while being a regular churchgoer, she strongly supports the separation of church and state. Thank you for joining us today, Natalie. Thank you for having me. So could you tell us a little bit about yourself and why and how you started working with Honesty for Ohio Education? Sure. So a little about me. I’m in the suburban Cincinnati area, although I always have to get in. I grew up in Kentucky. And I’m the mom of two boys who are both now in high school. And I’m a proud public school grad and the daughter of a public school teacher. And how I got involved in, you know, all of this related to separation of church and state, religious extremism, education, is because my kids for a few years were in a private school.

[2:20] Turns out we learned some things about them, which the private school is great for helping us figure out. And then we went back to public school. And shortly after we moved back to public school from a private evangelical school, our school board was swept by four religious extremists. We had a special election, so there were four candidates. And we had pro-public ed candidates who ran, but the vote was sort of split. We had more than enough, essentially.

[2:53] But all of the Tea Party folks and, you know, certain people that have a more conservative bent, they voted for these four extremists who operated on an anti-CRT platform and some other issues like that. And shortly after that took place, they tried to pass a resolution that worked more like a policy that was similar to the Don’t Say Gay bill. And it was going to restrict conversations and discussions, staff training, curriculum around discussions on race, socioeconomic privilege, gender, sexuality, et cetera. And I ended up joining some other families and suing the school district to stop this policy. As I was going through that process of, you know, making connections and getting this started, by the way, we settled and had the policy removed. That’s how I came across Honesty for Ohio Education was through some conversations I was having around this policy that they called the culture of kindness, but it was anything but, in my opinion. And Honesty was a brand new organization working to keep schools safe and inclusive and trying to protect teaching Honest History.

[4:17] And you know like there’s a lot of things that I had great teachers but we just didn’t learn back in the 90s and I want to make sure my kids learn those things and they have and so Honesty was an organization fighting book bans and in my opinion you know fighting the good fight for making public school something we can all be proud of. As a result of learning about Honesty I started doing some research around right-wing extremism, because I was trying to learn how this groundswell could come in my community that seemed to be a little bit counter to some of the values of my community. And I began doing enough of that research that I was providing it for honesty. So I started with them just providing some research on groups that are anti-public education. And in the process, I ended up coming on board as an organizer. I’m involved a lot in my local school board. And so I got involved first just helping with school boards, finding locals who want to, you know, get involved and engage in the school district level. But as we were starting to talk to people, we learned about LifeWise and release time for religious instruction. And so that kind of charted my path after that.

[5:32] And unlike groups like LifeWise and Moms for Liberty, Honesty is truly a grassroots organization, right? Am I correct?

[5:42] Honesty started, Honesty is grassroots, and it started as a working group and a sort of a coalition of different organizations. We’re still a coalition, even though we’re a nonprofit now. And it was people trying to address these curriculum censorship and addressing that at the state school board level, they rescinded an anti-racism resolution. So there had been one drafted by Republicans, but in the wake of the anti-CRT hysteria, they rescinded this policy. And so originally it was, they were engaged a lot just at that state level with state school board and with the House side of the legislature. And over time, it’s grown to having people involved at all different levels. Yeah, I remember that racism resolution. They passed it in the wake of the George Floyd protests. And then a couple of years later, once they got a majority on the state school board, then they rescinded it because of the CRT stuff. Yeah, it was awful. It truly is awful. And I just, I remember thinking that like we’re finally making progress discussing some of these ugly parts of our history that they’re uncomfortable and then to see basically reversing progress. And so that’s why this cause is so important because I want to make sure that we’re not reversing more progress.

[7:09] And as I mentioned during your introduction, that we met while working to oppose mandated release time religious instruction in Ohio public schools. And although we were ultimately unsuccessful in stopping it, what is some positives you took away from that fight?

[7:28] The, um, the, the fight to stop mandated, um, release time for religious instruction.

[7:37] Um, you know, it, it went down to the, the end of the calendar year last year. And it, you know, we, we were working on it almost all of last year. Right. And, um, it, so on the one hand, it was frustrating to kind of close out the year with it being passed. But one of the positives that I took away was that some of the safeguards that a lot of grassroots people in the working group and elsewhere had been saying that, you know, if we’re going to have to have it, then at least like background checks, at least some of these things trying to prevent disruption in the classroom, preventing taking away teachers time, things like that. Some of those did make it in the final bill. And so I feel like that was, you know, sometimes when you have a super majority, a small win is still a victory. So in that sense, it was positive. And then the toolkit that we all developed together, seeing that that was used and that.

[8:39] Legislators were reading that on both sides of the aisle, especially because some of them who were in favor of the policy or the law, they were reading the toolkit and learning things that they did not know about some of the programs in Ohio. And they seemed genuinely surprised. And so even, you know, sometimes it’s like the longer term, you’re trying to plant seeds of knowledge. And so I feel like it was successful in that part. But for me, the part that was most inspiring was seeing the true power of grassroots work. Because I had come from, I used to do a lot of in-house PR for nonprofits, and they were causes that I believe in, but it was a top-down kind of situation. So to truly see a movement that was a groundswell from the bottom up, which is essentially the opposite of what we’re seeing with LifeWise. I made new friendships and alliances that we, you know, we’re still working on other issues to protect kids. And, you know, now we can use those relationships to keep fighting for quality public schools that serve all kids.

[9:58] Yeah, and I will note, too, that we were successful in getting RTRI stalled in the House.

[10:06] And so much so that they had to work extra hard to get it introduced into the Senate. Then they had to shoehorn it into another bill that was likely going to pass. It was the Don’t Say Gay bill. So they had to work for it. So I was proud of that, that it wasn’t just a rubber stamp. Exactly. And, you know, even though in some ways voting in favor of it is arguably maybe not hearing all of the people, but having some of those safeguards and having it be considered at least, you know, over a period of time, yeah, I also consider that a win. And we have a new toolkit, if you don’t mind, I’m going to plug really quickly on the overall House Bill 8, because there are parts of that bill where you are still able to continue to advocate for every kid’s rights, even if they are LGBT, gender fluid. And so we have a toolkit that can help people. It’s on our website who are looking to talk to their school board members in their community about how can we create something that’s fully in compliance

[11:17] with the law, but still protecting every individual that shows up to public school. When you were working through this issue, why do you think that separation of church and state is important?

[11:29] The separation of church and state is important because when the United States was founded, we were at the time and may still be the only nation that evoked the people as the claim to power rather than a divine authority that they were evoking to claim power. And so even though there were evocations of a creator and nature’s God and things like that.

[12:04] Giving power to all of the people, not just some, is, in my opinion, even though some of us didn’t get and are still fighting for rights, don’t mean to suggest we’re not, but that’s what sets us apart. And not having a state-sponsored religion, which is what it essentially becomes if public funds and public authority is promoting and giving special permission to certain religions, I feel like that does start to erode that. And when we give all the power to every person, then that gives them the freedom to believe or worship or not believe or worship what they want without directly harming other people. And this is a little story. My 10th great-grandfather, he came over. He co-founded Concord, Massachusetts, where the Lexington and Concord were coming up on that anniversary.

[13:02] He co-founded Concord with his Puritan minister and about 10 other families. And of course, I am no Puritan, but I know that my own ancestors came for what they were pursuing as religious freedom. And so I have an appreciation for, you know, you do need a place where the government is protecting your rights to worship how you believe and how you please. And we look around the world at global conflicts, many of them start because of religious views and trying to impose those on other populations. And so if we want to have a free society, then we have to have a plural society where the government is not giving favor to any certain belief system.

[13:50] Yeah, my ancestor was exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and founded Rhode Island because he wasn’t conservative enough. So I have kind of a history of fighting church and state issues. And I learned only recently that the genesis of public school systems came right out of Massachusetts Bay Colony. And they set up public schools originally to keep them from the devil, you know, but, you know, just thinking about education as a bedrock of freedom, it’s core to who the United States is. Yeah, it’s the common good. It’s what levels the playing field for everybody because public schools have to accept everybody and they have to give equal education to everybody.

[14:46] And we all pay into it, whether we have kids in public school or not, because it benefits everybody in the community. And one of the most impressive things for me about your work, not just over the last year, but for at least a decade, is that you understand whether or not you’re a parent in the schools. A lot of our folks are grandparents, parents, but you understand that this is important for the good of all society. And so I appreciate so much everything that you’re doing and you’re spot on. Yeah. It’s like, there’s a lot of people when tax levies come up and they complain, well, I don’t have any kids. It’s like, well, that’s because you have a good community. If you have good schools, you’ll have a good community. It’ll be better for you in the long run.

[15:35] Exactly. There ended up, actually, during this fight over RTRI, several hundred submitted testimonies and dozens of in-person testimony given against it. And there was even more for the Don’t Say Gay bill that it ended up getting lumped into. What does that tell you about the grassroots here in Ohio? I feel like the grassroots folks in Ohio, everyday people in our community, they are not being heard. They’re trying to lift their voice and they’re not always being heard. The House had been trying to pass House Bill 8, the Don’t Say Yay Bill, for almost two years. So even though it passed, the longer that that policy was delayed were, you know, more days that people were not being directly harmed. Not that, you know, a victory would have been better, but, you know, delay in Ohio is its own victory.

[16:39] And we, the grassroots Ohioans will show up. To make their voice heard. They did it for House Bill 8. They did it for release time for religious instruction. And for Senate Bill 83, which is the Higher Ed Destruction Act, is what we call it. And then eventually Senate Bill 1, they had almost 1,000 people testifying. And so even just having thousands of voices heard is its own victory. And, you know, we need to claim that, I think, right now. And we have to keep showing up. So what I think it shows is that people will show up when they understand how it affects them or someone in their community. They will show up. And sometimes it does have small successes, like what we talked about with the RTRI bill or provisions added or taken out of a bill. That’s where we see some of our wins right now. But Senate Bill 1, having 1,000 people testify.

[17:40] Even if that’s, you know, all that we can accomplish right now, that is telling people there are others out there that are willing to stand up for you. And the same with House Bill 8. And, you know, you are not alone in this. And because of the supermajority, I think that some of the policies that I believe could be counter to the, you know, the overall common view on something, they don’t have a lot of people show up often. They did for some of the early RTRI testimonies and things, but because they have more paid people working on these issues and because they have more power, they will sometimes sit at home. And so, you know, they’re not always expecting us to show up. I know that Elon Musk thinks we’re being paid, but we, you know, the grassroots people are not being paid for a long time. I wish. I wish I was being paid. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I do work, you know, I am on paid staff now, but I was doing this for a while before getting paid, too. And, you know, it’s the time is worth it, even when it feels like it isn’t because we’re building community and we’re showing people they’re not alone. Yeah. And it’s also nice to see like people like Senator Brenner get all red faced and and mad because he’s getting challenged. I always loved that, watching him roll his eyes on the Ohio Channel.

[19:09] Having to listen to all that testimony.

[19:14] You know, even when they don’t listen, we’re still heard, at least on some level.

[19:21] For more information about the topics in this episode, including links used, please visit the episode page at glasscityhumanist.show.

[19:35] This spring, the fight has been over the next state budget, which is still under consideration. I know it just recently passed the House and moves on to the Senate. Honesty is focused on the public school voucher scheme. Can you tell us a little bit about that issue?

[19:53] So I just want to acknowledge up front that the state budget when it comes to schools is really complex. And so caveat, if I, you know, like if there’s a fact check, but so I’m going to talk more on a macro level, but, you know, it’s in our constitution to provide, to create public schools. And those are, you know, public non-religious schools where there’s plenty of room for people who practice religion. And even if you go back to the Northwest Ordinance, in Ohio, they set apart for there to be a public school in every original township before we were even the state of Ohio, right? So we know that, The state of Ohio providing for its people, public schools, is, you know, core to the identity of Ohio and what Ohio was founded on. And on the flip side, paying for private schools is not in the Constitution.

[20:56] And there are a lot of layers to this issue. And, you know, educating about vouchers is going to be a long-term thing. It’s not just in this budget cycle. But essentially, vouchers are providing coupons, if you will, that someone can use to go to a private school toward their tuition. And in some cases, some of the early voucher programs were specific to populations that were seen as in need and wouldn’t be able to access private school on their own. And, you know, and those parents, if they’re choosing a school that doesn’t specifically serve their child’s special need or what have you, that’s like, you know, they’re making that choice. You actually, you take away, you release your rights related to all of the disability provisions if you’re not in a public school, if people don’t know that.

[21:54] So that’s how it started. And over time, what we’ve seen is this expansion of what they call school choice. And, you know, the implication is that anyone with a voucher can then choose where they want their kids to go to school. And as someone who did private school for a couple of years, there was a voucher we could have used that we did not use. I don’t, I personally, we could afford it and I didn’t want to take state money for that. But.

[22:26] It’s not really the student’s choice or the family’s choice. It’s the school’s choice when it comes to private schools, whether it’s a specific belief system that they require students to adhere to or, you know, like testing in and only at a certain academic level.

[22:47] Or if your child is disabled and they don’t have, you know, access in the same way, like a restroom without using stairs. There are lots of reasons why that schools, you know, public schools have to be for everyone. And, you know, even in an old building in a district, they are supposed to have at least one school that serves a kid in a wheelchair to make sure they can get into that school. You know, there’s a lot of effort put into making sure everyone is welcome and gets a good education. And vouchers, on the other hand, they serve about 10% of students in Ohio. Public schools, 90% of students. And this new voucher program that started in the last budget where there’s now universal access. So you don’t have to be a certain income or live in a certain area. Anyone can get one of these coupons. There is a scale, but.

[23:55] And when this became available, we saw very little increase in enrollment in private schools, even though we saw a billion dollars spent on it. So they are primarily just going to pay for kids who are already in private school. So therefore, they’re not creating new options and new choices.

[24:19] It’s really just providing like an extra tax break for people who are already in private schools. And, you know, people have varying views on whether we should have vouchers or not. But the reality is that right now, when it comes to the state budget, choices are being made to limit funding to public schools. But there is a planned increase in vouchers. And a reason that it’s of interest, possibly particularly to your audience, is that many of these schools are religious schools. So it’s an increase in public funds that are going directly to religious organizations that you may not agree with, you know, the beliefs that they promote. So I know in my case, one of the reasons we left was because of some of the policies that this school had in place that we didn’t feel like we, you know, believe the same. And so I don’t I don’t necessarily want tax dollars going to places where kids who with divorced parents are told that, you know, that’s a sin or that LGBT students have something that needs to be fixed versus accepted.

[25:35] There also has been some talk, at least some proposed bills, that they’re going to go to a flat income tax, eliminate property taxes and make it harder for communities to put levies on the ballot. So if the legislature finishes gutting public school funding, how are the local schools going to pay the bills? How are they going to fund the schools?

[25:57] That’s a great question, because just last night at my school board meeting, we were discussing these issues because there are conversations around cuts at the federal level as well. So we’re looking at, you know, several funding sources that are all at the mercy of federal and state decision makers. And in the meantime, public schools have to provide a five-year forecast where they’re showing, like, this is what we anticipate we’re bringing in in revenue. And, you know, this is how we’re going to spend that revenue. And of course, there are contracts that, you know, have to be honored and things like that. And so the conversation last night at my school board was, Well, we can’t control any of these revenue sources, and we’ve really cut anywhere that we can cut already.

[26:52] I’m in a district where nearly, you know, over 80, I think it’s over 85% of our funds go directly for salaries of, you know, teachers and administrators and lunch people and, you know, all those things that we need to have a school operate. Right. And so the only choice left is hard decisions about things that would need to be cut, you know, and oftentimes that looks like less busing. That looks like higher fees for kids who want to be involved in sports or marching band and things like that. And I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that for my schools, but a lot of places are looking at that. And we already, a lot of suburban districts, I’m in a suburban district.

[27:42] We levy the taxpayers around every three to five years. And I fully empathize that there have been massive increases in valuations of properties. But one thing that might be useful for your audience to know is that when those values go up the amount in a levy that a school collects doesn’t change because it’s you know it’s based on what it was at the time and so actually after property evaluations went up our district is collecting less don’t ask me the math that’s you know that’s above me but so really it is coming down to existentially that we need them, you know, our health speaker, Huffman, said that it’s unsustainable to fairly fund public schools, but then we’re increasing private school vouchers. So I’ll leave that to folks’ interpretation, but specifically the tax, Rep. Matthews is one of the original sponsors of the bill. And I went to one of his tax town halls last year, and they believe that they’ll be able to make up revenue because they believe that it will bring in lots of new businesses.

[29:09] And in fact, they talk about how, you know, Ohio has lost population because, we started an income tax in the 1970s.

[29:21] And, you know, that correlation doesn’t play out. If you, you know, and or the causation. I mean, did he go to public school? Do you know? Did he go to public school? I do not know. That is a great question. I do not know. Because I think somebody needs to probably refund his money if he went to a private school.

[29:40] Um, I will, you know, he, um, he earnestly believes it, I will say. And, you know, and he talked about, we don’t want to cut schools. You know, we don’t want to cut funding for public education, but if the revenue’s not coming in, I’m not exactly sure how we would, you know, fund things. Yeah. I mean, they’ve been talking about triple trickle down economics since the Reagan administration and study after study shows that it does not happen. If you cut taxes, it cuts the revenue. It does not come through more business because the businesses take that tax. And the thing is, a lot of communities do this thing with the tax incentives. So they cut the taxes that go to the school in the first place to bring the business in. So are they going to do away with that? Who knows? And there are lots of ways that creative ways that money can be redirected to incentivize development, the community reinvestment acts.

[30:42] Tax increment financing. And, you know, sometimes depending on the district, those are also taking away from school funds. But they have a lot more flexibility than schools do with generating new revenue. Yeah. And they also, the other thing to consider too, is the state government is giving, I guess, in the proposal, almost a billion dollars to private schools that do not have taxpayer accountability. If your school district, your local public school district, you vote for the board members. So they are accountable to the voters. In private schools, they are not. And I can’t see how that that’s a good thing to do I really don’t I’d rather be able to have an oversight over the money.

[31:35] You’re exactly right. And Republicans in the last session, Rep Cites and Rep Manning, introduced a bill to have more oversight and accountability from private schools. Because ultimately that increases choice because parents can make better comparisons about what is going to work for their kids when they see how they’re managed and how they’re run and, you know, how students are really doing. I can say that, in my opinion, the Iowa testing, which a lot of private schools use, is a lot easier than what the state requires for public schools to do. I know my kids complain about it more. So, and so, you know, it’s not giving us the full picture of, you know, what private school success and the likelihood of success for your kid. And, you know, there may be private schools that provide a lot of transparency, but it’s certainly not required. Yeah, especially a sectarian school like a Catholic school, they only answer to the bishop. They don’t answer to anybody else.

[32:43] And who does the bishop answer to? The pope. As we mentioned, the state legislature has already spent at least $900 million. And in a recent budget proposal, they want to give the Cleveland Browns football team $600 million and cut back the library fund to $500 million. Why do you think that the Cleveland Browns deserve more money than the libraries and the public schools?

[33:12] That’s an excellent question. And as a sort of Bengals fan, I spent the majority of my adulthood paying off our stadium, which they now say is obsolete. So I have some strong feelings on this.

[33:30] And do you remember the days a lot of our games would be blackouts because it didn’t sell out? You know, the home game didn’t sell out. So even if you look at it in a sense of a football team providing enjoyment to all of the fans, even the fans who can’t come because it’s pretty expensive. At the end of the day, that is not serving and impacting as many lives as public schools do. And public schools, there is no entry fee.

[33:59] All right. If somebody wants to get more active on these issues and be an activist in politics, what kind of advice would you give them?

[34:10] The first piece of advice that I would give someone is just to show up. I remember the first time that I went to, it was like a demonstration of support for a transgender homecoming court member. And I came home and I told my husband, you know, if I ever moved to a new town and I wanted to make friends, the first place I would go would be some sort of rally or an event that’s promoting, you know, universal human rights because everyone is so welcoming and they are just so glad you’re there. So the first thing is just to show up if it’s a school board meeting, if it’s city council, if it’s one of these demonstrations on the weekend that a lot of different groups have gotten involved in, like the April 19th day of action, for example, May 1st. I think there’s going to be a lot of actions. And then listen, because, you know, there’s a lot that you may think you know that you don’t know. That was certainly the case for me. And then once you’ve had a chance to kind of learn the landscape, then you can pick what area you’re most passionate about. And so that would just be like my basic advice.

[35:27] And specifically, if someone wanted to get involved with the work that I’m doing, they just need to go to honestyforohioeducation.org and they can learn more, sign up for our newsletter. Our newsletter has a lot of legislative updates and, you know, other things that let you know what’s happening in public schools. Another resource that Ohioans Against Extremism has is called OhioBills.WTF. And that is a legislative tracker that shows here are a lot of bills that are happening on both sides of the Ohio legislature. And if we’ve taken a position, it’ll show the position of Ohioans against extremism or partners. And it’ll also just say like, here are bills to watch. Maybe nothing’s going on, but it might be interesting to watch. So those are a few ways. And, you know, speaking of libraries, head over to your local library, look on the bulletin board and see if people have put up on the thumbtack, like ways that you can engage. Those are just a few things that I’d suggest. And looking at the Ohio legislative bills, you want to actually say WTF quite a lot. Yes. Sometimes it’s like all you can do is kind of laugh or you’ll cry. Yeah. Yeah.

[36:48] For those that live in Ohio, besides the voucher issue, what other issue worries you the most right now in Ohio? I think I worry most of all that it’s not a legislative issue, but that people will start to check out because there are so many things that are swirling right now on, you know, all levels of government. They may start to get discouraged because we’re not seeing change fast and also the state is gerrymandered and like it’s pretty much going to stay that way at least until 2030 i think so um we need to rely on each other and be building community and be having like real conversations whether it’s virtual in person phone whatever but we we need each other right now so we have to keep showing up um to encourage each other and um you know it’s if i felt like i was out doing this by myself, there’s no way I could keep doing it. It’s the community. It’s knowing that other people care and knowing that other people appreciate what you do.

[37:52] Those are the things that we have to keep doing. And so keeping people encouraged is like a really important issue to me. Thank you. Thank you, Natalie, for your time today. Really appreciate your take on these issues. and I will have links to the Honesty website and the Ohio Against Extremism also. And again, I really appreciate your time and good luck in your future endeavors. Thank you so much. It’s always great working with you. And if you have to cut this, no worries, but one other plug really quick. No, go ahead. The current budget from the House includes mandating one period a week for the release time for religious instruction. So that’s just one other thing to watch. And I would encourage people to, you know, tell the representative that that should be left to local control. Well, it’s supposed to be. According to the court cases, it’s supposed to be. But yeah, it’s a good thing to know. Thanks again. Thank you so much, Doug.

[39:00] Thank you for listening. For more information about the topics in this episode, please visit the episode page at glasscityhumanist.show. Glass City Humanist is an outreach of the secular humanists of Western Lake Erie. Shole can be reached at humanistswle.org. Glass City Humanist is hosted, written, and produced by Douglas Berger, and he’s solely responsible for the content. Our theme music is Glass City Jam, composed using the Amplify Studio. See you next time.

[39:43] Music.