Farmers Branch mayor objects to campus mentoring program

by Joanna Cattanach of Chick Talk Dallas

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Can you really object to a program that has the sole purpose of keeping teens in school, prospering, and hopefully going to college?

Oak Cliff LULAC Mentoring Center

Someone please tell me how a mentoring program targeting at risk teens in danger of dropping out of high school is ever a bad thing? “No political organization should be invited into the public school system to mentor schoolchildren, let alone one that is divisive and far left-leaning in their political view,” Farmers Branch Mayor Tim O’Hare told The Dallas Morning News. O’Hare objects to a LULAC mentoring program at R.L. Turner High School. O’Hare has complained to the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD school superintendent and the school’s principal, and conservative Dallas radio host Chris Krok’s website is fired up about the topic. Krok wants the community behind his slogan: “HELP US KICK LULAC OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS.” (Ha! What a Krok!, pun intended.)

But no one is on the LULAC-ban wagon. "I’m hearing from students who tell me things like, ‘It really helps me to see that someone like me made something of themselves,’" R.L. Turner Principal Georgeanne Warnock told The Dallas Morning News. "That’s a direct quote." To be fair, LULAC has opposed many of the efforts forwarded by the city that target the Hispanic and illegal immigrant community. To say the relationship between LULAC and Mayor O’Hare is less than cordial would be an understatement. But can you really object to a program that has the sole purpose of keeping teens in school, prospering, and hopefully going to college? Even one that targets Hispanic teens? Since when has that become a “liberal” issue?

And consider what the high school is facing, "At R.L. Turner, 75 failing, over-age, homeless or otherwise at-risk students meet every few weeks, privately or as a group, with accountants, lawyers and other mentors that LULAC recruits. Nearly half of the school’s 1,369 students are considered 'at-risk' by the state,” reported The Dallas Morning News. That same LULAC program has faced budgetary constraints even with success in schools. (We wrote about it before). And if you want to volunteer, regardless of political affiliation, here’s more information.

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