Moms for Liberty, Hamilton County TN, a grassroots organization "dedicated to unifying, informing and empowering parents to defend parental rights at all levels of government," announced the election of Tonya Dodd as chapter chair, Robert Edwards as co-chair and Cindy Fain as treasurer.
Tonya Dodd succeeds Brandy Howard, Moms for Liberty Hamilton County TN founder, who served as chair since the inception of the local chapter in April 2021.
“It has been a great honor to serve as chapter chair of Moms for Liberty, Hamilton County TN,” said Ms. Howard. “I am incredibly proud of the work we have done over the last two years and excited to see that work continue."
Ms. Dodd is a mom whose son graduated from public school, and she has experience as a public school teacher in the Hamilton County Schools system. Her first-hand knowledge and unique insight into what is happening inside the schools, along with a large network of friends inside the system, made her an ideal choice to lead, it was stated.
She said, “Now more than ever before, I think it is important for the entire community to take an active role in preparing our county’s children for the real world and guiding them safely through the maze of our public education system.
“I agreed to accept this position because I have a passion for helping students succeed and desire to help parents speak up and advocate for their children. Parents have the right to guide their children as they see fit and the public school system should not assume this responsibility. To our teachers, I promise I will speak up for you.”
Ms. Fain joined M4L in 2022 and will continue her role as treasurer. She is the mother of two daughters attending public schools. She has been a small business owner for four years in downtown Chattanooga.
She said, "Like many other parents, I woke up in 2020 and experienced first-hand that children were not learning the basics, but instead groomed with the lies of CRT, gender identity and emotional social learning. I almost pulled my youngest out of the school system, but that's when I met Brandy Howard with M4L and soon found many other parents dealing with the same issues and concerns for their children.
"My husband and I decided to keep our daughters in public schools and make others aware of the self-inflicted problems in the education system. Now, along with many other parents and guardians, we are standing up against the anti-family political and social indoctrination of our children."
Mr. Edwards’s first job out of college was as an English teacher in Communist China. Later he studied and taught English in Taiwan/Republic of China. In 1986, he served for the first three sessions of the Tennessee Governor’s School for International Studies as a Mandarin Chinese instructor. Following a career in international business, he began a Mandarin program for middle and high school students at Sewanee-St Andrews School. Later he taught Chinese at McCallie School and served as an English as Second Language instructor at Tyner Academy and The Howard School.
“I’m honored to be asked to serve as co-chairman of M4L Hamilton County chapter,” he said. “I’m convinced the present structure of Tennessee public schools needs to be flipped. Public schools now serve in order the interests of 1.) administrators, 2.) teachers, 3.) students and 4.) Parents. That paradigm should be turned around, with parents given greater control over their child’s education.
"The state of Tennessee should offer all parents a voucher equivalent to the per-capita public expense of educating a child to apply to private or home school choice of the parent. When parents are given a private school option, the public schools will overnight decide to discard the CRT and DEI nonsense so destructive to our character of our children in order to compete for state dollars."
Ms. Howard said, “Events and actions surrounding COVID made parents aware that parental rights were under attack. As an organization, we researched hundreds of hours to understand the issues and threats to parental authority in Chattanooga, Hamilton County Schools, across the state and our country. We’ve learned third party activist organizations are at work in our state, influencing our local schools. We believe parents are the best decision makers for their children, not the government or other organizations.
“Historically, parents have not had an organization to represent them. Moms for Liberty raised awareness of these threats to parental rights. We encouraged and educated parents about action steps they can and should take to exercise parental rights. We met with local and state leaders to make sure parents’ voices are heard. I am confident that we have built a strong foundation, and this is just the beginning.”