Free Your Children with Tiffany Boyd

Summary:

In this episode, Erin welcomes guest Tiffany Boyd, a former public school teacher and veteran homeschool mom of 20 years. The episode delves into Tiffany's work as the founder of Free Your Children LLC, an organization dedicated to empowering parents to disciple and educate their children while protecting their parental, constitutional, and educational rights. Tiffany shares her journey from teaching in the public school system to becoming a passionate advocate for homeschooling rights. The conversation covers legislative challenges faced by homeschool families, the importance of grassroots activism, and the need for parents to educate themselves and get involved in protecting their homeschooling freedoms.

Resources & Links:
Find Tiffany Boyd at:
Her website, www.freeyourchildren.com
Her email: freeyourchildren@gmail.com
Her podcast, Front Porch Radio - Free Your Children Podcast

Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
Crimes of the Educators by Samuel Blumenfeld & Alex Newman 

Connect with Erin and Joe at Show Me Homeschool:
Show Me Homeschool Website
On Instagram, @show.me.homeschool
On Pinterest, @showmehomeschool

Be sure to leave a rating and review, and subscribe so you never miss an episode! For questions or comments email us: info@showmehomeschool.com

Transcript:

Erin:
Hi, and welcome back to the Show Me Homeschool podcast. Today, I have a wonderful guest who is so active in the local community that she's a part of and at a state level as well. Her name is Tiffany Boyd. She's a former tenured public school teacher, homeschool consultant, speaker, education researcher, and founder and administrator of Free Your Children LLC and the Free Your Children radio show. Tiffany is a wife of 32 years, mother to 5 children and grandmother to 2. She's a veteran homeschool mom of 20 years. Tiffany's appeared on multiple podcasts and media outlets. 

Erin:
So, Tiffany, wow, that's quite the resume. How are you?

Tiffany Boyd:
I'm well. Thank you for having me.

Erin:
Yeah. I I had I don't even know. I was trying to figure out where did I come across you and your work, and I believe it was somewhere on Facebook. Someone shared a post, maybe Schoolhouse Rocks. I don't know. But when I saw what you were doing, I saw your post. I started sharing them because what you're doing with for your children is something that I believe wholeheartedly in. So do you want to talk about how you got started, why you do what you do, and what exactly is for your children?

Tiffany Boyd:
Absolutely. Well, it kind of started by accident. I go into detail about this in my seminars, and I often say if someone had told me a year ago that I would be doing some of the things that I'm just doing right now, I would say to them, you have lost your mind. Originally, what happened was when I navigated out of the public school system as a teacher for years, I had formed a local homeschool support group that had upwards of a 1000 families that we were serving. You know, I was teaching free classes, co ops, organizing field trips, really helping people, consulting with families who wanted to begin the homeschool journey but didn't know quite where to start. So I did that for years. And then in the state where I live, I live in Tennessee, it became apparent that we were fighting against legislation and initiatives that were freedom grabs and that were asserting our parental rights, our educational rights, and our constitutional rights. So then I got into the world of legislation and legislatures and politics and then, oh my, that has been a whirlwind.

Tiffany Boyd:
I'd always watched legislation, kinda from the outside looking in. But when we started fighting against well-being, child checks, where they wanted to show up at our home for all children across the board no matter how they were educated from birth to 18 and then they were talking about changing the Tennessee code annotated and opening up the education code to offer a new homeschool option, which was really bad. I really got involved then because I didn't feel like we had anyone in the state of Tennessee advocating for our rights. So then kind of by accident, I got into the world of radio where I was invited to be a guest on several podcasts and then some radio shows, and then it just kind of took off from there. So for your children right now, you know, our foundation and I'm so excited because today, our new and improved website just launched, so you can find that. And we have a new For Your Children toolkit that I think will make it easier to give our followers the the tools that they need to be able to find what they're looking for because there's a lot of subtopics there that people can utilize. So I created for your children to help encourage and equip parents to disciple and teach their own children and also to arm them with what they need to protect their parental, constitutional, and educational rights. So actually today, when I finish up with this podcast, we are heading to the capital with the group of homeschool families and private school families because we are fighting current legislation in our state and it's a big game of cat and mouse here, I tell you.

Tiffany Boyd:
They're trying to do everything they can to prevent us from coming out in opposition to this, and I have actually gotten on the agenda to testify in opposition to both of the school choice bills that we know. The whole bottom line with this is that it will destroy true private education in our state of Tennessee.

Erin:
Don't you just feel like I'm listening to you talk and your story is very eerily similar to mine? In 2020, I did not ever think I'd be logging on to our state website to listen to hearings online when driving to the capital multiple times a month to testify in front of these people that are trying to legislate our rights away. And I just feel like, I don't know, maybe you're feeling the same. You're building a resume that you don't wanna have to be building. You know what I mean? Like

Tiffany Boyd:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I said not long ago, and I've said this often, that if other people had been doing this job, I wouldn't have to do it, and I can spend could spend more time doing the things that I really wanna be doing. Not that this isn't important, but, obviously, my first priority is to homeschool our own children because we still have 2 that we're actively homeschooling. However, I will say this has been a fantastic learning opportunity for them in terms of civics and how our government work. Yes. And they're learning about other states as well because Free Your Children is actually a nationwide organization. So we're trying to bring awareness to everyone that there are similar fights in state all over the United States because we know that the ultimate goal is the globalization of all education so that all education is then controlled by the government, all forms of education.

Tiffany Boyd:
So it will really destroy our true rights as parents to be able to educate our children as we see fit.

Erin:
I love it because that's exactly what we're up against and I think there's a broader scope than just education. You hit on medical freedom, you hit on parental rights, you hit on the constitution. These are all things that tie into private home education. We have a right as a parent given by God, not legislators, to educate our children as we see fit. And, you know, one of the biggest arguments that I hear when I visit the capitol is that, you know, there's this possibility that these children are just being neglected and abused at home. And you look at the research put out by Nary, with Brian Ray and he does fantastic work. It is, it is wonderful. It is solid.

Erin:
It is data driven. And what they're showing is that that overwhelmingly is not the issue. That is not happening by and large. I mean, I've been homeschooling 12 years as a mandated reporter, as a foster parent. You know, I have not seen these things happening. So what can you tell me about what is happening legislatively right now? You mentioned briefly some of the things that are being talked through.

Tiffany Boyd:
Yes. Absolutely. And I just had that long ago an opportunity to interview doctor Brian Ray and we actually discussed that, the mental health of homeschool children, what that looks like, and if the rate of abuse in the homeschool world is is greater than the general public. And so you can find those interviews over on the For Your Children's Spotify channel or you can go to my website and they're linked there. But I also, just last week, had an opportunity to interview Israel Wayne about what's happening in Michigan and how those parents, Christian parents are being attacked essentially because let's call it what it is. That's exactly what it is. There's a push nationwide. Make a false narrative in terms of what you just mentioned, that homeschooling children are abused, homeschooling parents aren't doing a good job, and statistically, that is not what has been proven.

Tiffany Boyd:
As a matter of fact, homeschool kids outperform public school kids across the board. There is no research that shows that they are abused any more than any other demographic, but this is definitely an attack and especially on Christian homeschoolers and Israel goes into that in the latest interview that I just did with him about this push for a statewide registry in Michigan. And then I just recently, I believe it was last night, read an article where the superintendent, I believe, in Michigan someone in in Michigan is calling for child checks now as well, and we dealt with that here in Tennessee several years ago. Oklahoma has their own battles. I have interviewed, Jana Belcher about that, regarding legislation that's going on in Oklahoma. Alabama is now fighting school choice legislation, and the list goes on and on and on. And I've highlighted these states in both articles that I have written for the borough polls and the radio show that I host as well.

Erin:
Yeah. And I think that this is the thing that's most shocking to me when I go and I talk to legislators and state reps and things is that they don't understand that we're watching too. You know? They're either willfully ignorant of what's happening nationwide or they're playing a major role in, in the development of this government control over private education. You're not in the middle. There's no, I'm naive, I don't know. If I have to have the time to take to read legislation, read the bills, explain, say, here's what we need to take out. Here's what we need to modify. Here's where this just needs to completely go in the garbage and burn.

Erin:
You You know, like these bills are just atrocious. So I wanna talk a little bit about, I know that you're passionate. I know that you are building a community of people. I'm also trying to do the same here in Missouri. You've talked to some of our colleagues, recently that are working at a, I mean, really, I'm a homeschool mom. I'm working at a state level trying to help other homeschoolers. So what do you say to the parent who may be listening? Who's like either I had no idea this was going on or how can I get involved?

Tiffany Boyd:
Well, the first thing I wanna say is definitely get involved. Do not depend on organizations that claim they're fighting for your freedoms to make sure that you are able to preserve those freedoms. You have to take an active role in this. And I will say letter writing campaigns are great, sending out emails, that's great, Making phone calls to legislators, that's great. There's no substitute for showing up in person. Amen. Our legislators have to see the faces of the families that the legislation that they are sponsoring is going to affect. There's no substitute for that.

Tiffany Boyd:
Very easy for them to ignore email. Actually, I have read responses that legislators have sent back to many of our families here in Tennessee, and they're just form responses. Like, you can tell that it doesn't even appear that they've read the email that was sent to them at all. They just send back a form response. But we were just recently in our capital here during Tennessee, February 6th, and the things that our conservative Republican legislators said to us regarding parental rights and freedoms was absolutely astounding. And I think it was a, an eye opener for the people that actually traveled up with us because as we know in politics, politicians are really good at telling you what they think that you want to hear. But when you go and sit down with them and have 1 on 1 discussions about legislation that's currently moving through the process, you will oftentimes get a different perspective Mhmm. On who is supposed to be representing you.

Tiffany Boyd:
We were told by 1 in particular, we were debating the state constitution in Tennessee and I simply said I'd like to pose a question. If I may, do you believe that the state or the parents have more rights in terms of education of their children? And he looked at us and said they're equal.

Erin:
Really? And this is a conservative representative?

Tiffany Boyd:
Yes. And I did show where we went into detail about this experience that we had with we only made appointment with our, conservative republican legislators because we felt that they would be more open to hearing our perspective about the legislation that we were there to oppose. And unequivocally, we kept hearing things like homeschoolers need oversight. There are parents that don't teach their kids anything. There are parents that don't do a good job. You know? What and and so we kept hearing that over and over again, and the these sentiments were coming from our Republican legislators. Mhmm.

Erin:
We've heard the same. And I think that that's where, you know, we keep trying to tell our people here in Missouri, our friends, our people that follow on social media that you have to be involved at the local level because and that's like your city, your county, and then your state. Absolutely. Because I think from what we saw with 2020 with COVID and everything happening that way, there are unelected people who get to make decisions that impact whole communities. And if we are not placing strong Christian leadership, and I know that for a while, we've talked about this before, that, you know, for a while, Christians were told, you know, just, you know, politics and and faith, you know, they just, you know, let but look what's happened.

Tiffany Boyd:
Look at what's happened. Yes. And I say, you may not be interested in politics, but politics is definitely interested in you. Right? So there's no way to be neutral on these things at all. And another thing that I wanna say too is find groups of people that are active in the fight. Oftentimes, large organizations, they put out really nice founding, emails or statements, but oftentimes, those organizations are not the ones that are actively engaged in battle. I'm finding here in our state of Tennessee that for your children seems to be the only organization that is there actively fighting with boots on the ground, and we're just a grassroots organization made up of moms who and dads who are rallying together. And when we put out a call to action, those parents show up.

Tiffany Boyd:
They get themselves on the agenda to testify. They reach out to legislators and explain, you know, what their position is on certain pieces of legislation. And I think that through the years, we have gotten complacent in general as a nation. And I think that we just expect other people to take care of that for us. And you're right, gotten us where we are today. So I would highly encourage in Missouri. I just wanna say Missouri is an awesome state. We live in Tennessee, but I have I've met some wonderful people throughout the years of me doing this.

Tiffany Boyd:
I've been involved in education for over 3 decades now. And so I have had an amazing opportunity to meet some amazing people and I wanna give a shout out to the Camden County Republican Central Committee. They are power houses in terms of fighting the globalist agenda of education and fighting against the full choice scam. I did a fantastic interview with them, and I wanna say that if you're living in a state where you do not have educational freedoms, you need to take a lesson or 2 from that county. I hope Tennessee can achieve what Camden County, Missouri has achieved. And I I left the capital on February 6th, and I looked at a person that had gone with me and I said I've lived in Tennessee for my whole life for 50 years. I would have never in the past considered moving, but after hearing what our conservative legislators said to us, it was mind boggling. And then some of the friends that I have met in Missouri are like, well, you can always live

Erin:
here. Exactly. Yeah. We would love to have you. Yes. Those ladies down there and the guys too are really fighting the good fight and they've been in it honestly longer than I have. I just came on the scene. They've been there for over 10 plus years fighting against common core.

Erin:
And I mean, it's all connected, you know? And and honestly, my wheelhouse is the homeschool side. I haven't been in the public education other than being public schooled myself. And I did work at a public school, for a short time, not as a teacher, but as a different staff after high school. But these ladies have shown me too, you know, it's not just about protecting homeschool rights. It is about the rights of parents to make choices with their children. And when we talk about school choice, I call it we're not talking about school choice. We're talking about school funding because everybody has choice. We have in all 50 states, private, parochial, home education, and public school are all legal options.

Erin:
There is no legislation that needs to happen to make anything more legal than it already is. It already is. It is about that money and who has control over the data of the child and the family. You know, building these That's Online portfolios. We haven't even touched on the whole digital wallet access that is the portal for this funding to happen to these families Yeah. And what data's collected. And that's really concerning. And for the average parent that hasn't taken this stance like you have, in creating this for your children or like, our friends here in Missouri, you know, it's overwhelming.

Erin:
So what would you say to the parent who's listening and just thinking, I don't have time to go to the capital. I don't have time to research legislation. I don't even know where to start. What would you say to the parent who's listening and feeling that stirring, like, I really can't sit on this any longer?

Tiffany Boyd:
It is a lot. I often get accused of being a fire hose when people come to me for information. I would say we all waste a lot of time. We we're all busy, but we also all waste a lot of time. So I would say start somewhere trying to educate yourself about what's going on. That's the reason why we created the free your children toolkit right there, and it's free to utilize. And it's because when I would do the seminars across the United States and we have even been asked now to start branching out and coming into other states to do the seminars because I I customize those according to what is happening locally, you know, where I'm presenting. And they would say, I didn't know any of this so much.

Tiffany Boyd:
Do you have information on x, y, and z? So I would say take the time to do a deep dive into some of these topics. I recommend certain books if you haven't read weapons of math instruction, crimes of the educators. Listen to some of the interviews where we start talking about the globalization of education and what school choice really is because it is a scam, and we go into great detail about that as well. Start small. Don't get overwhelmed. Reach out to people who have information, and they can lead you in the right direction. If you have questions asked, the only dumb question is the one that you don't ask. And the bottom line with all of this is, I didn't know all of this either when I started.

Tiffany Boyd:
I knew none of this. When you go to school to be a public school teacher, they certainly don't tell you any of this. They don't want you to know these things. Had I known then what I know now, I likely would have made different decisions in terms of educating our older children because when I was a public school teacher, our older kids went to public school. But when we knew better, we did better. Right? And so the first step to to all of this is education. So if you want to know more and you're interested in hosting a for your children seminar in your area, reach out to me and I would be happy to try to make that happen. That's number 1.

Tiffany Boyd:
If you have questions, you can reach out to myself or reach out to you do as well and start gleaning as much information as you can. But the most important thing is they have been able to get away with all this because parents don't know. And an educated populous, dangerous populous to them because then it takes away their ability to be able to do things that they've done in the past and advance their initiatives, because people are asking questions and that's very scary for them. It's it's scary when parents are educated and armed with the knowledge that they need. So I would just say start somewhere, anywhere. Reach out. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

Erin:
I love that. Yes. Definitely start small. Again, like you said, I never ever thought I would be having these conversations, but here I am. And you know, it's amazing how, when God calls you, he will provide those things. So if you're feeling that you just really are done sitting on the sidelines, reach out and, you know, just start small. Like you said, you don't have to start a whole organization, but as you saw, saw, there wasn't one, but, you know, like, we've talked about, there were ladies that we connected with here in Missouri that were fighting the good fight and we just joined in. Grassroots is powerful, and I think that's the thing that we have, in Missouri.

Erin:
I asked, a senator last couple weekends ago. I said, you know how many homeschoolers are in Missouri? And he's like, no. And I said, and I wanna keep it that way because we don't have to register in our state. And he got a chuckle out of that, but it was just, they have no idea how many of us there are. And when we start Yeah. Collectively using our voice to speak out in opposition to our freedoms being squashed, they have to listen, you know? Yeah. That are elected people if we don't vote for them. And that's one of the things we like to point out too.

Erin:
This agenda is global. It's not coming out of Tennessee. It's not coming out of Missouri. It is coming from people, lobbyists, organizations that want control of our families and to break that family unit even further down to squash Christian education and really squash all choice because when you have that those strengths attached, there is no real choice. It's gonna look just like it does over there.

Tiffany Boyd:
Yep. It's controlled. You're right. And that's it's so that was one of the reasons why it was so important to me to highlight other states. Because as you said, we don't live on an island in the United States. We are all connected. So what happens in one area of the United States is going to affect other areas of the United States. And see in Tennessee, we have to register.

Tiffany Boyd:
And so we're fighting against that as well and, I agree with you. I think our legislators don't realize that most homeschool parents, the majority, we are very politically educated and we vote. Yes.

Erin:
I told him, I said, we're your base. You know, these conservative people, we are your base. If you go and destroy what we're doing in our own homes, you there's going to be repercussions of that of people not supporting you.

Tiffany Boyd:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that it again, you're right. You said it. Grassroots are very, very powerful. They are. And as a matter of fact, I was reading some articles about Corey Deangelis and, you know, he's become the faith of school choice that's damned. And one of the articles that I was reading, he he said, we did this.

Tiffany Boyd:
We were able to get the public on board with this through grassroots because legislators do not read white papers. You know, they don't pay any attention to that. But what they do pay attention to is people showing up. And so that's what homeschoolers have to do to fight against what Americans for Prosperity and the faith of school choice is trying to promote is this globalization of education. In order to do that, our voices have to be louder and we have to show up and it does have to be a grassroots movement. You're doing great work there in Missouri.

Erin:
Hey. You too. I'm excited. I'll be praying for you as you go to the session today and testify. And, Tiffany, before we sign off, can you just tell us again where to find you on on the web, on Facebook?

Tiffany Boyd:
Yes. You can find me. The website is for your children dot com. You can also email me at freeyourchildren@gmail.com. I'm on Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, signal, telegram, everywhere imaginable. And you can find me all those places for your children.

Erin:
Thank you so much, Tiffany. We really appreciate you coming on today, and I just know that God is using you in amazing ways to protect not just your own homeschool, but the statewide level of home education in your state. And we just really appreciate the work that you're doing, so thank you.

Tiffany Boyd:
Thank you for having me. It was an honor.