Where I Stand: Robots, Indoctrination, and the Truth About Our Schools

Candidate for Pinellas County School Board, District 3 (At Large)

I wasn’t planning to write this.

But after reading an article about a humanoid robot being introduced as a future support for education, I made the mistake of scrolling through the comments.

And I kept seeing the same thing:

“Good. Now teachers won’t be indoctrinating kids.” “Finally, no more biased teachers.”

That stopped me.

Not because the conversation about technology isn’t worth having, it is. But because of what those comments revealed about how we’re thinking about our schools, especially here in Pinellas County.

Let’s Be Honest About the Word “Indoctrination”

It’s a serious accusation.

And like any serious accusation, it requires serious evidence.

Not a clip. Not a post. Not something we saw happening somewhere else.

Actual, verifiable patterns.

So, I went looking, specifically at Pinellas County Schools, over the past several years.

Here’s what I found:

• Controversies? Yes.

• Complaints? Yes.

• Investigations into conduct or comments? Yes.

However, after reviewing publicly documented Pinellas cases from roughly the last six years, I could not locate a clear example where a teacher was publicly found to be indoctrinating students in the classroom and then publicly disciplined specifically for that reason.

That matters.

Because if something is widespread, you see a pattern. And if there’s a pattern, you see consistent accountability.

That pattern isn’t there.

And if I’m wrong, I want to know.

If you have a verifiable example from the past six years, please send it to me at curtiscampogni@gmail.com.

I chose that timeframe intentionally because around 2020-2021 is when this conversation really took off, including at school board meetings in our county.

If this is happening here, we should be able to point to it clearly.

The Trap We’re Falling Into

We see one example, one story, one moment, and our brain turns it into a pattern.

Over time, thanks to confirmation bias, that pattern becomes our reality.

This is often called a hasty generalization, taking a small or isolated example and applying it to a much larger group.

It’s also tied to something called a heuristic, a mental shortcut our brains use to make quick judgments. If something is easy to remember or emotionally charged, it feels more common than it actually is.

So, we take something that happened somewhere, and we assume it’s happening everywhere.

It feels real. But that doesn’t make it true.

And that’s where things start to go off track.

What I’ve Actually Seen

I’m not writing this from a distance.

• I went through public schools

• I have family members who are teachers

• I’ve worked directly with students for the past 15 years

I’ve seen great teachers. I’ve seen average teachers. And yes, I’ve seen teachers who probably shouldn’t have been in the classroom.

I even had a middle school teacher laugh when my parents said I would make something of myself.

So let me be clear:

This is not a defense of every teacher or every action. And it’s not a claim that schools are perfect.

There is always room for improvement.

But if we want to improve something, we have to be honest about what the actual problem is.

Not the loudest one. Not the most viral one. Not the one that will get a candidate the most votes.

The real one.

Who Benefits From This Narrative?

This is the part we need to think about more carefully.

If the narrative becomes:

“Teachers can’t be trusted”

“The system is broken”

Then the next question becomes:

“What replaces it?”

And that’s where multiple groups enter the conversation.

Private companies, not because they believe indoctrination is happening, but because when a problem is widely believed to exist, there is an opportunity to solve it.

That’s their responsibility, to build solutions, scale them, and yes, profit from them.

But it’s not just that.

There are also education alternatives, including charter operators that may be nonprofit in structure but still use private management, overhead, or contracted services. When public trust declines, those alternatives can become more attractive, whether that shift is intentional or simply an unintended consequence of how these systems operate.

If confidence in public schools drops, alternatives grow.

That’s just reality.

That could look like:

• AI-driven learning platforms

• Automated instruction tools

• Technology that reduces reliance on human educators

And to be clear, technology can absolutely support learning.

But that’s a very different conversation from replacing trust in teachers with fear.

The Irony We’re Missing

If we tell students, without evidence, that:

“Your teachers are trying to indoctrinate you”

What are we doing?

We’re asking them to believe something about their environment that isn’t grounded in fact.

We’re teaching them to distrust without proof.

We’re modeling the exact kind of thinking we claim to be concerned about.

And that’s a problem.

Because we owe our kids honesty.

That’s the bottom line.

Where I Stand

I believe in:

• Accountability when something inappropriate actually happens

• Transparency so families feel informed and confident

• Truly listening to our teachers

• Recruitment and engagement that encourages empowerment and autonomy

• Elected officials who will say the truth just as loud as the lie

• Continuous improvement in our schools

But I strongly reject the idea that teachers in Pinellas County are broadly indoctrinating students, based on the lack of publicly documented evidence to support that claim.

And pushing that narrative without proof doesn’t help a single student.

It makes our schools and communities weaker.

Let’s Have the Right Conversations

If we want to improve education in Pinellas County, let’s focus on things that matter:

• Supporting teachers so they can succeed

• Engaging families in meaningful ways

• Preparing students for the real world

Not getting pulled into conversations built on isolated examples and assumptions.

Because those conversations don’t lead to solutions.

They lead to distraction.

Final Thought

We can do better than this.

We can have real conversations, grounded in facts, not fear.

We can challenge our schools to improve without tearing down the people doing the work.

And we can stop getting baited into arguments that start with a hasty generalization and end with the wrong solution.

I am not saying teachers are without flaws. There is not a single profession that does not include human beings who make poor decisions, except, ironically, the professions some private companies hope to replace with robots.

I am saying that if something inappropriate does happen, then let’s address it, apply district policy, and keep it moving, without turning one incident into a sweeping conclusion about an entire profession.

And lastly, let’s hold each other to those same standards.

When a coworker, neighbor, friend, or family member tries to influence others toward a specific idea, especially one built more on emotion than evidence, we should be willing to pause, dig deeper, and talk about what is actually true.

Our students deserve that.

And so do the people teaching them every day.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of Curtis Campogni, Candidate for Pinellas County School Board, District 3 (At Large), and do not represent the official position of any organization or governing body.