Connor Boyack, creator of the Tuttle Twins book series, said he wants “accountability” in the viral video exchange between a Colorado middle schooler, his mother, and a school administrator who claimed the child had to be kicked out of class because his backpack displayed a Gadsden flag patch, insisting that the flag had “origins with slavery and the slave trade.”
In the video, the mother is seen pushing back on the administrator’s historical understanding of the Gadsden flag’s origins, which trace back to the Revolutionary War. After the video went viral on social media, the backlash and mockery of the school administration led to the 12-year-old boy, Jaiden Rodriguez, being allowed back in school.
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“The Vanguard School recognizes the Gadsden flag and its place in history,” the school’s board of directors said in a statement. “At this time, the Vanguard School Board and the District have informed the student’s family that he may attend school with the Gadsden flag patch visible on his backpack.”
“That was a small victory, but I need accountability for that administrator. We need to see some kind of reprimand, discipline or fire someone,” Boyack said Wednesday on Washington, D.C.-based WMAL’s morning radio show.
Boyack revealed that when the mother and her son were driving home from the school meeting, the 12-year-old, a fan of the Tuttle Twins book series, said to his mother that in a Tuttle Twins book, the characters went to the news to help them with legal problems. The student’s mother drove to the local NBC television station, and he knocked on the front door, asking for a reporter to come out and talk to him, but “no one would.”
“So that’s when they reached out to me and said: ‘He’s a big fan. Can you help him?'” Boyack told WMAL. “I said, ‘absolutely.'”
The conservative author was the first to share the clip of the meeting online, and it quickly garnered attention across the country.
Meet 12yo Jaiden who was kicked out of class yesterday in Colorado Springs for having a Gadsden flag patch, which the school claims has “origins with slavery.”
The school’s director said via email that the patch was “disruptive to the classroom environment.”
Receipts in the 🧵 pic.twitter.com/qQ8jK1zSpR
— Connor Boyack 📚 (@cboyack) August 29, 2023
The administrators later suggested that the controversy over the backpack was in part about the other patches of weapons.
“The patch in question was part of half a dozen other patches of semi-automatic weapons,” the administrators said.
Boyack pushed back on the administration’s response.
“So now tens of millions of people have seen this story and brought pressure on the school, they are now saying it was concern over the firearms patch, but that’s B.S. because none of the video has anything to do with that. They were targeting this Gadsden flag patch, and really, they are just trying to cover their butts right now,” he said.
The author revealed that the backlash against the situation had forced the school board to go into “an emergency session.” He said that the student now wants to fight the school’s objection to his firearms patches.
“This kid is extremely based. He is a legend,” Boyack said of Rodriguez.
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The author also shared that he is thrilled that Rodriguez had been reading his books for years and that he encapsulated the values of his books.
“For an author, that is my dream,” Boyack said. “We’re trying to make a million more Jaidens to fight for the future of this country.”
