About Donna Voetee: 100%

 

Education and Nutrition are my passions, my soapboxes, and in truth, they are inextricable.

Children are being poisoned in their bodies by toxic food, and then dumbed down by the modern curriculum.

In other words, children are being made Sick and Stupid – intentionally, and that is just not acceptable to me.

1981. While pregnant with Child #2 and cramming a two-year Associate Degree into four years, I volunteered to be a  "VIP" (teacher's helper) for my first-grade daughter’s class. Children  #3 and #4 followed in 1983 and 1984. One was adopted; I can't remember which. 

1984. Becoming aware of "secular humanism" in schools, I joined a group called Citizens for Excellence in Education, founded by Dr. Bob Simonds. This organization’s purpose was to restore academic excellence and traditional moral values to the public schools. We also helped parents resolve local public school issues - ranging from opt-out policies for sex-ed, to outcome-based education and goals 2000. We stayed busy trying to make positive policy and curricula changes, helping to elect good conservative school board members, and building consensus with school officials.

1986. My daughter is in 5^th grade by this time at Jane Addams Elementary in Long Beach. We had a head-on collision with public school curriculum: a children’s book called Headless Cupid, which taught lying, cheating, stealing. I complained to the school district and requested that the book be removed; from April to October, our CEE group held meetings with Dr. Giugni, LBUSD's Supt. Thus began my baptism by the liberal media. My friends and I at CEE were called “headless,” “bookburner,” – you can imagine. Our battle with the district is documented in Johanna Michaelson’s book Like Lambs to the Slaughter.  Johanna, a former witch, along with her pastor-husband attended our meetings and testified that witchcraft is indeed a religion and if Christianity was verboten, so should a book teaching witchcraft be pulled. 

The teachers union came against us, a group of liberals formed a group called FOE, Friends of Education. The Jewish synagogue held public meetings denouncing our efforts, not realizing I had enraged them with an article I had written called "Epitaph for the Cupid" in which I called for "separation of school and state."  Not to be outdone by the ancient imposters (Rev. 2:9, 3:9), the leftist, liberal Lutheran church invited the author to a forum to roast us. I began to wonder, Why are they fighting so hard to keep such perversion in the hands of innocent children? I followed the money. I discovered that in 1986, Long Beach Unified School District got $640 for each child who scored below 49% on the tests. Mediocrity was good for the education industry. Special Ed brings special funds.

After many months, the final decision of the district was to keep the book in the schools. So our daughter and son #1 came out, and we became part of a new trend called homeschooling.

But, I had a problem, How to teach reading? A teacher friend who also worked as an accreditor for private schools, Ellen Jensen, introduced me to a method called The Writing Road to Reading by Romalda Spalding. Ellen had trained under Myrna McCulloch who founded the Riggs Institute; Myrna had trained under Oma Riggs, who had worked directly under Dr. Samuel Orton, whose studies on neurological development are legendary. So I consider myself to be Dr. Orton’s great-great granddaughter of the literary world. I studied the method and apprenticed with Ellen, teaching my children, other homeschoolers, even public school teachers in the southern California and Sacramento area. Ellen and I then collaborated on a project to teach grammar based on the principles of the WRTR, which we donated to The Riggs Institute. 

As my children grew older and became more self-sufficient in their studies, my heart heard the call of my genetic heritage, two grandfathers who had been doctors in the backwoods of Arkansas. Family rumor had it that their patients paid them with the likes of homemade bread, fresh chickens, and sometimes moonshine. I started school myself, studying herbs and natural medicine. 

2001. I became certified as an ND (Doctor of Naturopathy) and Counselor of Natural Health. 

I began teaching health classes, but also researching toxic ingredients in food after an encounter with MSG sent me to the ER. Supermarket Survival was the result of that unfortunate event; if I had been poisoned, others were also experiencing the same trauma; it was my duty to speak out. I taught it through adult education in community college, recreation centers, churches, homes -- wherever the doors and minds opened. 

2006. We moved to Texas and opened a health store in Lockhart. I also got involved in the schools again when I joined the School Health Advisory Council as a business owner and health counselor. Happy to say that my store, The Life Emporium, showed the Texas premiere of the documentary Two Angry Moms,  by two fed-up moms who took on the abysmal school lunch.  

By this time in my life, I'm learning that being a source of Truth is often not appreciated, and so it went with my critique of the Red #40 and high fructose corn syrup in Lockhart school cafeterias. 

2008 and 2009. Soon I was un-invited from membership in SHAC, but the producers of the movie knew people in Austin who got me connected with the Statewide PTA Convention, so I got an opportunity to teach two classes to parents from the whole state: WHY CAN’T MY CHILD BEHAVE and BEHAVIOR, LEARNING & HEALTH: THE DIETARY CONNECTION.

2014. My friend and kindred spirit in literacy, Henry Skinner-Larsen introduced me to his method of teaching reading, Point to Reading. So I volunteered to teach Point to Reading to four children at a local elementary. While working up a schedule with the librarian, my whole life took a turn. She asked me when I could come in. I asked, When do you need me? She said, “CAN YOU BE HERE AT 8 AM UNTIL 3PM EVERY DAY?”

My heart sank. How could it be that bad? How could children STILL not read, after all the billions we’ve thrown at education?

2015. I began a tutoring ministry, applying what I know about nutrition along with the basics of teaching reading. I call it Qara Academy, the Hebrew word for READ.

My goal is 100%

•100 percent literacy of American children by the end of second grade. Graded readers will become obsolete as schools can use REAL literature.

•100 percent literacy of American parents, whose own education has been compromised.

•100 percent of American children free from dangerous psychotropic medications that are often used as remedial solutions for the frustration created by improper teaching methods.

•100 percent of American families knowing the dangers of food additives, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, colors, allergens, and other physical toxins that affect children’s academic performance, as taught by the Feingold Association.

•100 percent of Americans knowing how to teach someone to read, just as we all know CPR ‘just in case.’

In summary: Take back education from the educrats!