Champions of children & freedom endorse Monica Wilbur for State Board 10
Learning is not a science or a business, but an art.
Families, teachers, and taxpayers all benefit from boundaries that bring us back to basics in Utah’s classrooms and return children as the focus of Utah’s education system
We’ve let local schools get taken over by national & global systems that are deciding what happens in our kids’ classrooms. If we care about the best interests of Utah’s families, their children, and the future, we must make a change. Bad top-down policies are putting Utah’s schools on a downward trajectory that is unacceptable, which is why we need new leadership at the board with the courage to face the problems head on.
Prioritize Academics first
Utah spending on public education is at an all-time high of $7.3 billion, and yet our students’ academic scores keep sinking lower & lower.
We must stop throwing money & resources at widely promoted & deeply flawed approaches, such as intrusive social emotional surveys & lessons, sexualized content, labeling kids according to identity politics, trauma-informed practices, and the excessive & obsessive use of technology.
With a strong focus on time-tested, traditional methods & content to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and science, our children will be prepared to think and act wisely based on objective & self-evident
truths.
respect conscience in school
Our children are a captive audience in the culture wars that are being fought & taught in the schools. This is why it’s important for parents to understand that their children don’t have to check their consciences at the school door!
Students need to know they can act on their sincerely-held internal sense of right and wrong without fear of punishment.
53G-10-205 is a wonderful law that protects children from being complicit in their own indoctrination, and respect parents’ rights to act upon their own conscience and belief on behalf of their children.
restore schools’ proper role
No school, no matter how well meaning its programs & people, can take the place of a healthy family—families are the fundamental unit of all free and civilized societies, and Utah should be leading the way.
Schools are being transformed into social welfare service centers, which incentivize dependency mindsets & habits in our children & families and lead to costly, unsustainable programs that burden all taxpayers.
Less is more! Schools must be schools, with a streamlined focus on scholastic achievement and merit. Asking schools to do too much is asking for increased teacher burnout, reduced parental involvement, and diminished student privacy.
protect kids from exploitation
There are too many bureaucrats and unaccountable third-parties micromanaging and dictating what happens in the classroom.
A child’s education should not be a means to somebody else’s ends— it should be the end, in and of itself.
The state should protect children from being used to promote global, national, or local agendas, fill workforce quotas, solve for real or manufactured societal problems, or lobby or agitate as activists for causes inside or outside of school.
K-12 Education in Utah by the numbers
Something is not right when almost 90% of our students are graduating even though fewer than 50% of them can perform at grade level in reading, writing, math, and science. On the West side of the state, where District 10 is, proficiency rates are much, much lower than the state average. Click the button below to look up your local schools and see for yourself.
Why do I want to run for the Board?
My family
My family is my joy and my strength! I’m the proud and busy mom of four beautiful and bright children, and the wife of an incredible man who supports us all.
My education
I attended Utah schools, but also benefited from a wonderful education in classic literature both as a child and as an adult. My B.S. in English is from the University of Utah and my secondary education teaching endorsement
is from Weber State University. After leaving teaching, I worked as a technical editor and earned certifications in web development.
Despite my formal education, I consider myself first and foremost an auto-didact, and believe that the best books are often the best teachers a person can have.
If elected, I will never vote for policies that benefit the system at the expense of the children, families & public it serves
My experience in the schools
My work in public schools began with teaching high school English and coaching debate. After I had my children, I volunteered in their classrooms and served on multiple community councils.
My children have attended public and charter schools, as well as having been homeschooled and dual enrolled. The advent of Common Core and other standardized classroom practices raised many serious concerns for me on the direction in which public education was heading.
When Covid restrictions affected my children’s learning for the worse, I became unexpectedly involved in advocating publicly for my children and others’ on a range of controversial school issues that children, parents, and
teachers shouldn’t have to be faced with. It was shocking to me to see how different schools had become since I had taught, and that many teachers were feeling as trapped as the students were feeling in situations beyond their control.
My work to inform parents & help children
It was not long before I became heavily involved in education policy at both the state board and at the state legislature, putting in almost 5,000 volunteer hours in just the past two and a half years to inform and speak with hundreds of parents across the state about their concerns for their children and grandchildren. This work has been motivated by the relentless efforts of
Board Member Natalie Cline to bring transparency to the complexity and confusion created by a malfunctioning public school system. The research and work we have done together demonstrates beyond any doubt
that all is not well in Utah’s schools, and that critical change is required to ensure that the school system first does no harm to those most vulnerable within schools, the children
.
A look at Monica’s education efforts
Making laws better
Protecting children and parents in schools is paramount to me. I’ve contributed to the crafting of a number of important bills at the state regarding constitutional rights and protecting children,
but most significantly, Rep. Acton’s HB348, also called the Rights of Conscience bill.
This bill protects a students’ or parents’ rights to not be forced to participate in any aspect of school that violates their consciences.
HB348 passed with a supermajority in the legislature, and was signed into law in 2023.
Helping inform parents
Good information leads to good decision making. I’ve spent the past 1 1/2 years travelling across the state with Natalie Cline to share our information and insights on latest developments in public education.
From Logan to St. George, from Tooele to Richfield, hundreds of parents, grandparents & teachers have relied on our research and observations of the trajectory of public education to guide their education choices and increase their
awareness of the increasingly radicalized education landscape.
Our website, Higher Ground, was created to show how many of the policies, programs, and processes driving public education have complicated and corrupted the simple art of learning.
Consulting decision-makers
Charter school administrators, law makers, board members, private school directors, family rights advocates, and fellow school reform advocates have relied on model policies, research, and analysis I’ve developed over these past few years
to help them formulate ideas on education that rise above “go along to get along” groupthink approaches.
My consultation centers on the urgent need for more moral courage in education spaces to seek hard truths over easy excuses, think originally, act unconventionally, use language precisely, challenge assumptions, and stand up for American
values and proven principles of liberty, honesty, trust, ingenuity, dignity, integrity, and humility.
Your support is appreciated
Help me spread the word
If you’re short on time but still want to contribute to my efforts to improve education for children in Utah, you can donate directly. All donations are considered a sacred trust, and will be spent for vital campaign purposes only.
Join me in my efforts
I am running as a Republican through the caucus/convention system. I
won’t bypass the public by collecting signatures for the primary unlike my opponents because it’s critical that elected officials represent themselves directly to the constituents in their districts, and earn their trust
and support.
If you want to join my efforts to reach out to the voters of State Board District 10, let me know!
Endorsements
Utah State Board District 10
The State Board District 10 area includes Salt Lake, Tooele, and Utah Counties, and is one of the larger districts in the state geographically.