Rick Green: 0:00
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It's WallBuilders where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. You can learn more about us at WallBuilders.com and WallBuildersLive.com. WallBuilders.com, our main website all kinds of great materials and resources available for you there, and then WallBuildersLive.com, for our radio program, where you can get some of the archives over the last couple of weeks if you missed those, and also at either website you can make that one-time or monthly contribution, coming alongside us financially so we can get the truth in as many hands as possible and influence the culture in a positive way, being salt and light. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, here with David and Tim Barton, David's America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders and we're going to be bringing an interview to you a little bit later by a lady that's just I mean literally a mom that has rallied an entire community and now other communities are doing the same thing, really going in in this case, not just winning elections for their school boards, but actually going in an influencing policy and staying involved throughout that process. So she actually sent a letter to David and Tim about what she's been doing. We'll share that first and then we'll get her in on the program. She'll be calling in here in just a few minutes. But she said, David and Tim, I'm writing this to you because after years and years and years she had a lot of ends in there, folks, Okay, and years of listening to your broadcast, that sounds like we're old guys. Anyway, growing up on your DVD sets, now I really feel old guys and going through your courses, oh good, she said David, Okay, so David's the old one, not me maybe. But she said you too, Tim, Just saying I wanted to share that the formula that you have delineated out for the American people as active citizens in our country does work. You can call this a testimonial of the product by a satisfied customer, if you would like. November 7th Election Day showed major losses for conservatives everywhere, but in a major way in my state of Pennsylvania. Messaging was very easy. We had all the information and trends in our favor to take back the judges and municipal races, but all across the state school boards flipped blue, except one, Pine Richland School District In my local area. I spent a year getting moms and dads informed on what is happening in their local schools. Parents became experts on SEL board policy and administrative resolutions. We organized, had meetings to talk strategy, recruited old school board members for help and guidance and we showed up month after month, gathered others with similar views to join, added to our email list to get informed and equipped. We taught how to protect their kids with opt out forms, talking points and understanding their rights. From that group we garnered the next slate of school board candidates. We already had a 6-3 majority, but that majority was not being used because of conservatives fearful of looking quote unloving with their votes. Oh, David and Tim, that's a whole topic we might have to chat about. Anyway, she goes on to say our parents group is called Pine Richland Parents in Action and we were the boots on the ground door knocking fundraising, sharing with neighbors, making signs, working on budgets, helping the candidates be fully informed about the issues, writing blog posts, etc. In the end, we ran our slate of new candidates with a huge margin of victory and now have an 8-1 majority with a possibility of 9-0 after a tied election, goes to provisional and military ballot count from an incumbent candidate. Well, just think about that, guys. Anyway, she goes on to say I've been asked why our campaign, which had all the same issues as everyone else, was able. Well, we were able to pull off a victory and it was simply because it was run by the parents. It was separate from any local GOP committees. The win was greater and the loss was worse because the people who were working on it were the ones most closely affected by the win or the loss. And that is the claim that you have made over decades. Local citizens, co-rulers, get involved and things change. So please use this for what it's worth. I have had people from DC reach out and want to know the secret, the strategy, the playbook. But the secret is not how, but the who. Thank you for all you have taught me over these many years. Satisfied customer. Wow, guys. Okay, I just want to emphasize over these many years. So that was incredible. I mean, she got victories in their local school district because local parents, as you said, had the most to lose or the most to gain. It was their kids, it was their community. So they got involved. It wasn't a top-down approach. It was a bottom-up approach, David. It's everything you've said since you started WallBuilders 30 years ago. What more than that? What year did you start WallBuilders? 1980, something right.

David Barton: 4:33
Well, actually, after I had my conversation with George Washington, John Adams, and learned from them how to do this stuff. I know way, but is you listed as grant? No way, that's wrong.

Rick Green: 4:43
century to this goes back to nineteen in truth, David, you had conversations with George Washington, John Adams, all those guys, because you were literally reading just about everything that they wrote. So that's like having a conversation with them, and out of that, well, I gotta say I wasn't reading it at the time we started this.

David Barton: 5:01
I didn't know about history until two or three years after WallBuilders started, and then I figured out history, so it was really about law and about statistics early on. But, nonetheless, it was September of eighty seven is when would be kind of the start date, and I think we got incorporated somewhere in eighty eight, so it's it's been a few years.

Rick Green: 5:21
Well, Amy has been, has been learning from you for for I don't know how many of those years, but she said it was definitely years and years and years. But man, look at that fruit, that, that that's just phenomenal fruit. She applied the things she's been hearing From WallBuilders and learning and, and, and so many other people out there can do the same thing. I can't wait to. Can't wait to talk to her. Gotta take a quick break. Will be right back. Folks, you're listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 5:50
Hey guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders, called the American story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that's just not known or not told today. And, we would say, very providentially, in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the sixteen, nineteen project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not not the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we're against everything that America was built on and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There's so many things attacking America. Well, is America worth defending? What? What is a true story of America? We actually have written and told that story, starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln. We tell the story of America not as a story of a perfect nation or a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It's a story you want to check out WallBuilders dot com. The American story.

Rick Green: 6:53
Welcome back WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. I am excited about this interview because it's going to give you hope that you can make a difference in your community as well. Too many people are so focused on Washington and drain in the swamp and Thinking that's the only way to save the country. And it's important and we're involved there, obviously, but it's what you're doing locally that's going to make the biggest difference, and parents in action are doing exactly that, and I think not just in Pennsylvania, but in other places as well. But our guest is from Pennsylvania, Amy, and forgive me, Amy, do you say "Krahe"?

Amy Krahe: 7:23
No, it's [said] "cry". It's like a lot of extra letters that you don't need.

Rick Green: 7:28
Well, you're the first Krahe I've ever met, so that's awesome. I love it. Well, Amy, absolutely loved reading your email to David and Tim and just the difference that's being made by the parents and the fact that y'all still had victories when a lot of other folks had defeats, and you talked in the in the email about how it was because the parents were engaged and in charge. They weren't just deferring to local political parties, but actually doing these things themselves. So super, super encouraging to us and we just wanted to get your story out to our listeners so that more people would do the same thing. So let's just start from the start. Like, have you been involved doing this kind of thing for a long time? Did this start with the 2020 insanity? Like, what was your trigger, I guess, to really get you engaged?

Amy Krahe: 8:11
Well, so I'm actually a product of my background is in political science and communication, so it's kind of a knick that the Lord has allowed my brain to kind of function in this way. Well, but-.

Rick Green: 8:23
Was preparing you for this for a long time.

Amy Krahe: 8:26
This is actually the case. Yes, they've got a lot of glory for this, but I also am a product of watching many of the DVDs of the American Heritage series when I was younger that WallBuilders put out, and then I have five kids and so, sure enough, they've also watched those DVDs. We've done the Biblical citizenship as devotion through the summer, wow. And so it was really the incentive that you guys talk about so much on those, about getting involved in the mission field that the Lord has set for you and being active. And so two or three years ago my kids were actually are all in Christian school and you had talked about, I think, of the Biblical Citizenship class, about doing Constitution days, and I thought, well, my kids are not in the public school, but what's the area that the Lord has put me in? And so I developed a curriculum for a full day Constitution day from kindergarten to eighth grade, really fell back in love with getting involved in these arenas and one of the classes for the 40 minute period was like a mock election day where the kids got to experience doing all of that and running somebody and media and press and things like that. And so later on, when my oldest entered into the public school system in ninth grade two years ago, I started getting more involved in seeing what was happening at the board level. I had a number of friends who were on the school board and they had gotten elected and then they were allowed to then have the wonderful prize of being screened. At that they were racist and extremists for the following year, and so that was such a wonderful prize to win. But I started wondering, like for the people who helped elect you, what happens next? Why is there no support lever? And so I joined a mom's and prayer group at the local school district and we started kind of talking and chatting and saw a lot of confusion. There's a mindset that happens when you elect somebody you should just then burn the keys over and they should just be able to do everything and not worry about the turrent of upsetness by the other side. And so we decided to create a group called Parents in Action, and so we started meeting the week before every school board meeting. We had kind of the buckets that we wanted to focus on, which was the library, the school curriculum and then anything that would be coming up on board policy. The kind of the overall umbrella was what does parents write? In our district Specifically, we have 80% of our taxes go to funding the schools, and so the local community should have the most significant say on what is happening. So we started just studying and putting our heads down and getting to work with understanding. Where do these policies come from understanding? You know these associations that feed information to the superintendents. What information that they're getting? What are our rights, how do we defend our rights? Talking points at school board meetings and even then how to also engage with local media, and so we had been working on that for about a solid year, showing up at every school board meeting, developing a lot of relational equity with school board members. And so then, when it came to election time, we really had already developed the boots on the ground for these elections, and so what we had noticed is that when parents are part of the election process, they've got a lot of skin in the game, and we had parents who were highly educated on things like what is social, emotional learning, how did these library books get into the library, and then what is the policy to remove them from the library, and so they could really speak to their neighbors in a very educated way on why they were voting for the people that they were voting for. And actually we even ran one of our parents from our organization and she won in a landslide in the district. So she will now be being removed from our group, but she will be entering in as a school board member in the next month, and so it's been an exciting process, but it is something that the Lord has really directed throughout the entire way and have developed this almost small group of believers outside of the four walls of the church. So when we've had wins, it's been exciting and we've had the joy of the Lord. But then, even though times where we've had losses, where we were hoping to get a no vote or a yes vote on something at the school board, look at your phone and we would be sending Bible verses and prayers of encouragement to each other, because we are just called to stand for truth and to be obedient. But the results are left up to the Lord, and so we had a lot of faith and a lot of peace knowing that.

Rick Green: 13:15
Wow, wow, so many things that you just said that I want to drill down on. I don't know how many of them we're going to get in, but I'm just blessed by everything that you just said, I guess. First, it's what I love about this if I understood you right, for that year of Tilling the ground and doing the hard work and and when I say hard work, it almost sounds like y'all actually enjoyed getting together and studying these things and and doing this research and it was almost like a club. I love this, um, but it was. It was not the school board members, they this was this was parents Doing this on the side as a project to hold their school accountable and to improve what was happening in their, in their local school. And, like you said, one of them did end up running and now can't be a member of the group because they're on the board. That's hilarious. I love that. So that's I mean, I just want people to get an image of this. So because because right now we talk a lot about this, we got a lot of groups out there that we support and then we work with, that are working on getting, you know, good people elected, the school board and all that. But it's not just running candidates and getting them on the board. Y'all are literally a citizen organization in the community. That that is ongoing, it's, it sounds like it. I mean you, you designed it specifically to not just win an election but be there after the election just like we would do with a legislature. We'd go testifying committees, we would go help in the legislative session, we'd walk the halls to get a bill passed. Y'all are doing that with the school board throughout the year is what it sounds like to me.

Amy Krahe: 14:42
Yeah, I mean really taking a lot of the example of what happened on the national level and then bringing it down to the local level. So we just had a leadership meeting last week and we talked about, okay, for the strategy for this year we have a very different board. We have an eight to one majority. So then how do we, what is the engagement of an eight to one majority look like and how does that look different Then last year? And so also talking about and strategizing what are our goals this year. So what are the things that we are looking to tackle? Some of those things would be you know, we've got some inappropriate Material in the library. So how do we make sure we are on those committees to make to get that literature out of the library? How do we also help with Directing and giving you know the language of a new policy to be written so that the, the library policy is tightened up, so that material does not get back in there?

Rick Green: 15:35
and when you say we, I'm so sorry I'm going to ask you, so just got to get a picture of my mind here. When you say we like, how many are we talking here in Terms of your working group?

Amy Krahe: 15:43
So currently, right now, we have a leadership board of three we started with about 15 and that would meet at my house on every month and we would sit there and we would talk through. This is what we're doing. This is what I'm talking. Raise your hand, are you going to speak? What are you speaking about? Okay, well, if you're going to talk on that, then I'm going to talk on that. That is how it started for about a year when we started getting into the election, and then I would have an email list group that maybe wouldn't show it to the meetings as much, but they wanted the information. They wanted to know how to about opt out foreign things like that, to know what's going on so that they could protect their own child. And so now it's grown to about 120 Not all meeting, but that are looking for this information that will show up to meetings, that will at least Email in to the school board, that will watch the school board Meetings on YouTube and that are now awakened and engaged and what is happening when their child is in the school from 8 o'clock To 3 o'clock, that they do not have surveillance over and this is, this is in a school district, the size of what like?

Rick Green: 16:48
how many Roughly, how big the school? How do I pick, you know, because so many different sizes school districts out there.

Amy Krahe: 16:54
It's not a huge school, well, so we're in the northern suburbs of of Pittsburgh, and so you're looking at a graduating class of about 2000 huge to me.

Rick Green: 17:05
Little bitty school, so still, graduating class of 2000 is a lot, okay, all right. So so you're in Pennsylvania. That's small to you, but that's big to me. Um, okay, so this is so a decent size school district, and, and and, and. You've got a roughly a hundred people that that are engaged at some level, maybe not showing up every month, and then three really dedicated folks and and. To me, all of that says one person you started with with a passion for this, got got a couple other people on fire and Everybody else rallied to the banner that you raised and and said, yeah, we want, we want to be a part of this. But you got organized, you stayed outside of the political parties for this particular activity and saw incredible results. And it sounds to me what I also hear from you and in your voice and in the things that you're saying is You're in this for the long haul. This is not going to be just a one election cycle. Y'all see this as a duty and responsibility of local citizens For the you know, the, the future of your kids.

Amy Krahe: 18:04
I think it goes back to defining what the word citizen means, which is actually like that you are a co-air, and so the more that we stop acting as a co-air in government, the larger government gets, and so we are able to kind of push government back into its place, the more we exercise our role. And so we've seen that in a very short period of time. As we as parents have said wait a second. I want to know and understand what is happening in my district and I want to have a say, because my money is funding this, and so very quickly we get to see what the power of assembly actually looks like and why it's so important to have that is that we engage, that we get informed and that we are able to then speak up in a respectful way and say we like this, we don't like this, and there are huge gaps and opportunities for believers to step into. When there is these opportunities to look at curriculum and to give feedback, that every all curriculum has to have a 10 day window of time where parents and the community can look at it and give feedback. When you know that nobody in your district is doing it, that is a vacuum that you look to fill Because why not 15, 20, 25? Parents who are faith background look at the curriculum and then say wait a second, this curriculum is not okay and these are the reasons why. And then you hear at the school board level that this is the most feedback they have ever heard of for curriculum before. That is a huge win.

Rick Green: 19:35
No, that's huge. It's huge. Oh, so many again, so many things. I wish we had three hours. You just said exactly and I know we missed each other at the Constitution Coach conference in Pennsylvania last weekend, but Ken Ivory, state Rep from Utah, was there and he spoke and the things he talked about in terms of you're the boss, you know, the citizen is the boss. And that's exactly what you just said. You have to change the mindset. You're not just on the receiving end of what government does. We're held accountable, we're the boss. We are Caesar and we have to do Caesar well, and that's literally what you all are doing when you have these meetings. You're being the you know, the board of directors, essentially for the community, and the school board is a level down from that. They work for you guys and you're holding them accountable. That mindset is critical. I think you just touched on something that has got to be a part of this next phase of citizen involvement as we move forward to taking our country back and, of course, taking education back. Amy, I wish we had more time. I do have to ask you this how do you keep from? How do you keep focused and doing what you're doing without the pull of. I know you're going to get a million calls of people saying we want to do that in our community. How can you train us to do that? Or, you know, do you recommend a national organization that's training people to do this? Are you guys literally doing something that nobody else is doing and we need to figure out a way to replicate how you're doing it? That's a lot of questions. See what you can do with it.

Amy Krahe: 20:53
So, yeah, so one. I've been able to speak at a number of different just churches, either moms groups or things like that, because people want to know this information, they want to know how did this work. So I did create kind of a general like an SOP so that people can kind of plug and play. But the reality is is every district is dealing with different issues, and so I can look at our district and say our issues and the factors that got people out to vote was maybe one thing, but you know, two or three miles down the road we have a different district and they're dealing with completely different issues. And so creating like a best practices is great, but the people who know the district and the issues the best are the local people. And so, yes, there are some of these natural things that trickle down, but they may not always be the reason why people want to come out and vote. They might sound like they're kind of the big overarching issues, but they might not be the trigger that get people out to vote. And so it really is the boots on the ground. It's the parents who are looking to be involved that know best what are the things that need to be pushed back on or even what are the things that need to be supportive, one of the things that we were able to even say you know, conservatives get a bad rap where we's against something. So we really wanted to look at like, what are we for? And we were able to get signatures and petition signed to get something called LifeWise Academy into our school district. That's going to be starting up in January and that again was from a mom and our parents group who felt the calling of the Lord to do that and that literally uses the 1950s Supreme Court ruling for release time for there to be biblical instruction during the day for kids. And it's such a neat thing to say you know what. We've been able to push back against this or be about this, but we have now activated this other level lever to say these are the things we're for and again, having that group of people already in place enabled that to happen so much faster than what have been able to happen otherwise.

Rick Green: 22:53
So good. What a positive report. Amy, Please keep us posted and keep sending us positive reports. Let's get you back again. People need to hear this and know they can make a difference. This will have a generational impact in this community and in the state of Pennsylvania, but also for our country. We're so thankful for your application of God's Word in this way and being a true leader in your community. Really appreciate your time today.

Amy Krahe: 23:18
Thank you so much for having me Really appreciate it, and I appreciate all the work that you guys have been doing.

Rick Green: 23:23
Wow, that was great guys, man Amy. Thank you so much, David Tim. What a great testimonial. You can tell she's fired up and is getting great results. It's wonderful fruit. You know what?

David Barton: 23:33
we have here is a failure to communicate, because I think I missed something here. I I made. You asked her how big a school. She said it's not. It's not really all that big. Graduating class of 2000 I had a graduating class of 40 people.

Rick Green: 23:48
I mean 110 or something. Yeah, yeah.

David Barton: 23:52
Oh, our high school was one fourth of her graduating class, and so if that's not a big school in Pennsylvania but think about that that is. That's what I would consider a mega school, because that's got to be six, eight thousand kids in high school Somewhere in that vicinity. And look what happened they got every single seat and and they did it not out of reaction but out of very cool strategic planning. She trained, she taught. Everybody knows what SCL, she went through all the stuff she did. I think that is such a good model that it was not a reactive kind of victory where they were just looking to go in and Just take over and not know what to do when they got there. I mean this is really well planned, good for her, good strategy. I love the fact that she had a hundred and fifty or so folks working on it, but it took thousands of votes to be able to get done what they did, and good for them. Well you know.

Tim Barton: 24:42
One of the things, Rick, that you asked her Is is there a model? And and she very wisely pointed out that issues are going to be different everywhere but it really is about learning the issues, learning the community and getting to know people, and this is where I think so often that relational equity gets a lost in people's understanding in mind of If a true grassroots movement is people connecting and having conversations with other people and there's an education process happens, because certainly the people that are on her team and the people that were supporting and working with them. There probably were some very passionate people that didn't have the information they needed, and so you have to have somebody who knows the information, who can help guide a coach and rally, and so just absolutely Incredible. When you show that level of intentionality, you have some basic Understanding the difference that can be made. We talk about this all the time. You can make a difference and this is such a fun example of someone making an incredible Difference by getting involved, acting locally and ultimately winning a pretty big victory.

David Barton: 25:49
You know, there's a really important lesson here also and there's an accent that we use in politics a lot is once you get people elected, don't let them become orphans. I mean, when you get people elected, don't just turn your back up say, got you elected, you go do everything right. She has stayed engaged with them, she stayed involved with them. They keep educating, they keep training, they keep doing all the things necessary to support the people that they got there. This is going to be a great success story over time because they're not letting their elected officials become orphans. They're. They're keeping them very engaged, very involved and very connected.

Rick Green: 26:20
I Love the staying power here. They're talking about digging in and doing this year after year after year. That's the way we've got to approach it, folks. That's you know, price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders.