Recognizing Bartram Trails High School Girls' Soccer Team
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Mr. RUTHERFORD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate St. John's County's Bartram Trails High School girls' soccer team for completing a remarkable 2022-2023 soccer season.
Last month, the team won their third Class 7A Florida High School Athletic Association title in just 4 years, earning them a spot at number one in the Nation.
Under Coach Jen Rodriguez' guidance, seniors Olivia Bori, Sophia Magdalein, and Reese Henley scored the winning goals in their final game and secured Bartram Trails' place as northeast Florida's first public school to finish unbeaten in girls' soccer.
This impressive record is a testament to the discipline, focus, and skill the team has demonstrated on the soccer field throughout their season.
I look forward to following along as they set new goals and break new records.
Mr. Speaker, all I have to say now is: Go Bears. Recognizing Bill Rogers
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Mr. RUTHERFORD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Bill Rogers. Bill has dedicated his life and creativity to developing safety equipment for some of our Nation's most highly skilled military and law enforcement elite tactical teams.
It all began in 1969 when Bill became the youngest candidate to be selected for the FBI Academy. After losing his handgun during a pursuit, Bill decided to craft his own holster, a product which he later named the Kydex Holster.
In 1973, he presented the holster to the FBI, and the agency went on to buy Kydex Holsters and integrate them for their agencywide use.
With his newfound success, Bill Rogers began the Rogers Holster Company and developed Rogers Shooting School to begin teaching gun use and safety skills.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Bill began working with the Department of Defense. He was training Navy SEALS, developing new styles of safety holsters, and accepting shooting school contracts from special operations units within the U.S. military and many international units. Many of these units continue to operate here today.
In 1980, Bill Rogers sold Rogers Holster Company to Safariland, which is a U.S.-based safety equipment manufacturer and actually helped create Team Safariland, the first professional team in action shooting sports.
Bill continued to expand his business by developing a series of competition holsters specifically designed for sporting use.
I met Bill in the late 1980s when I was the training commander for the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office as we were transitioning from wheel guns over to semiautomatic pistols. It was during that time that I asked Bill if he could help us to develop a holster with a locking mechanism, a retention holster.
Little did I know what would come of that, but I was struck by his humility in the face of such success and his ability to innovate firearm safety and training.
What I didn't know was that while Bill was developing this retention holster for the Jacksonville Sheriff's officers, he was simultaneously being commissioned by the U.S. Navy to train classes of Navy SEALS.
In 2017, Bill went on to contract with all five military branches, an incredible achievement and act of service to our Nation.
Hundreds of recruits have been skillfully trained and protected under his guidance. His security holsters and training methods have also saved countless law enforcement officers from one of the most common events an officer ever experiences on the job, and that is a perpetrator trying to take control of their gun.
If you look at any uniformed police officer today, it is very likely that that officer is wearing a Rogers retention holster.
As a lifelong law enforcement officer, I am honored to recognize Bill Rogers' contribution to our Nation and to the safety of our law enforcement officers.
On behalf of northeast Florida, we thank Bill for his continued work to keep our officers, our community, and our country safe. Ensuring Parental Involvement in Education of Children
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Mr. RUTHERFORD. Mr. Speaker, today Congress passed legislation that guarantees parents have a right to be involved in their children's education and to hold their school administrators accountable.
At face value, this should not be a controversial bill. Yet, it passed with a slim majority of 213-208. It is a parents' bill of rights. Yet, 203 of my Democratic colleagues voted against affirming parental involvement in a child's education.
I would say I am surprised, but this opposition is just more of what we have already seen from Democrat leaders and the White House over the last 2 years.
A campaign against parents, characterized by unnecessary school closures, masks in the classrooms, DOJ repressing parents' rights to participate in school board meetings, and an effort to label concerned parents as domestic terrorists.
What do we have to show for 2 years of this kind of ``leadership''?
Reports of historic learning losses and higher levels of anxiety and depression in our school-aged children.
The fact that we even need legislation like this further proves how far we have come in this country. It is an unfortunate reality that there are individuals across this Nation actively questioning a parent's right to know what their child is exposed to in the classroom.
A teacher in Arizona has even suggested that because she has a master's degree, she is more qualified to make a judgment call on what children are taught in the classroom and the parents are the ones who need to be vetted before they can voice their opinion.
She even went so far as to say this: ``We must remember that the purpose of public education is not to teach only what parents want their children to be taught, it is to teach them what society needs to be taught.''
Mr. Speaker, I reject this idea that my children are her children. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't believe a parent's right to have a say in their child's life ends at the edge of the schoolyard.
Parents are the primary stakeholders in their child's education. I am proud to have voted for the Parents Bill of Rights Act today, which will ensure parents have the right to know what is being taught in schools and to see reading materials that are presented to their children; the right to be heard at school board hearings; the right to see school budgets and spending; the right to protect their child's privacy by prohibiting student data from being distributed to tech companies; and finally, the right to be updated on any violent activity that occurs at their school.
Opposition to these reasonable provisions is just more of the same government-knows-best attitude that has led us to where we are now.
I will put this plainly because this issue hits very close to home for me and for every American family, regardless of party affiliation.
The future of this Nation rests on the education of the next generation. While I believe that teaching is a noble profession and our educators deserve recognition for their service, there is not a world in which a loving parent should be separated from taking an active role in their child's education.
As a proud father and grandfather, I am committed to ensuring education decisions are made as close as possible to the classroom, so that the future of this Nation remains rooted in freedom for all, but it needs to be made with students, parents, and teachers.
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