Parents must stand up, says Milwaukee mom in lead up to parents rally in Wisconsin 

As calls for curriculum transparency, school choice and accountability from local school boards has increased, parents nationwide have stepped into new roles they never considered before: political activists. 

Scarlett Johnson is one such parent.  

Johnson, of suburban Milwaukee, was a self-described stay-at-home mom for 22 years. Today, as president of her state’s Moms for Liberty chapter, she calls herself a political activist.   

“Moms like myself believe we must have influence in the arena of politics precisely because we must have a say in public policy,” Johnson told The Lion, as she prepares to speak at an Empower Parents Rally on Monday near Milwaukee. “We are the parents, families and children forced to live under said policies; it’s about time we stand up for ourselves and reinvigorate the cause of liberty. Politics is policy, policy affects people.” 

“Moms for Liberty helps concerned parents organize and amplify their voices to achieve the most important of goals: results,” said Johnson. “We support legislation that focuses on parental rights and creating strong, robust schools that educate, not indoctrinate.” 

Johnson recently gave an interview to the Badger Institute, detailing her journey from stay at home mother to activist and organizer, and the reasons she felt so strongly about speaking out.  

“I’m Hispanic. The values that are present in these very progressive, extremist curriculums do not align with the Hispanic community,” Johnson said in her interview. “They’re anti-family. They’re anti-God. They are anti-parent. They promote an agenda that doesn’t fit with the Hispanic culture, the familia. They want to subvert the family and give that child a new family, and that is not their job. Their job is to educate.” 

Johnson says she first found her voice when she saw the isolating effects of school closures on her children during 2020 and began advocating for local schools to re-open. 

“I found like-minded parents, and we started to do the same thing: Okay, let’s write. Because once we write our school board members, and once they know how we stand, they’re of course going to listen to us,” Johnson told the Badger Institute. “What was very shocking to me…as I started to dig, and as other parents started to dig, and started to attend school board meetings, we started to notice this trend of decline. 

“Our district releases, every year, a report card, and we started to see that this decline did not start with COVID. It had actually started as early as 2015.” 

Johnson encourages other parents to be involved in their local schools, and to speak out against policies that undermine academic quality and parental rights.  

“We all can be a hero,” she told the Badger Institute. “Each one in our small way, me in this tiny little town in Wisconsin. Everyone has it in them. They just have to dig down and find it, and they have to care more about their children and more about liberty than they do being popular and liked.” 

In fact, Johnson will share her message at an Empower Parents Rally next week in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. The Rally is sponsored in part by The Stanley M. Herzog Foundation, which published The Lion. 

The rally will focus on educational issues in the state and feature speakers Luke Berg, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty; Bonnie Lee, 1848 Project; Justin Moralez, American Federation for Children-Wisconsin; and Alexandra Schweitzer, No Left Turn in Education-Wisconsin.