Keeping Kids in School PAC Candidates linked to QAnon, Bigoted Views

Keeping Kids in School PAC has promoted themselves as a grassroots children's advocacy group, but they are knowingly endorsing a number of candidates linked to QAnon, the violent January 6th Capitol Insurrection, and a range of racist, bigoted, anti-LGBTQA views.

Keeping Kids in School PAC is the well-funded, well-organized Political Action Committee endorsing and promoting WCASD Candidates Ada Nestor and Stacey Whomsley. In early May, we alerted KKIS chair Clarice Schillinger of the bigoted and QAnon-linked content posted by Ada Nestor and requested that she take action to investigate these abhorrent and harmful views and review her endorsement. KKIS promotes themselves as a grassroots children’s advocacy group, so we were certain that as soon as Ms. Schillinger and her team were aware of the objectionable content, they would take action. Instead, nothing happened. When questioned about the content by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Ms. Schillinger went on record saying she would investigate. But again, nothing happened.

A Troubling Pattern

This lack of action was as puzzling as it was troubling. Why would a group that claims to be fighting for all children ignore content from their candidate that puts those very children at risk? As we pointed out to Keeping Kids in School PAC as well as Ms. Nestor's close ally and unofficial running mate Stacey Whomsley (WCASD School Board Candidate for Region 3), this is not an issue of a single errant tweet or misuse of words. Ms. Nestor's online activity shows a longstanding pattern of QAnon activity, misinformation, and bigotry, including content that:

• accuses Child Protective Services of being part of a nation-wide child abduction for profit scheme,

• states #BLM is part of a satanic conspiracy,

• declares that Islam is "the religion of pedophilia, rapes, and beheadings",

• celebrates the destruction of a Breonna Taylor memorial,

• claims to have decoded a secret online message that proves the U.S.A. is still under the control of the British Crown.

And there's much more. Ms. Nestor's @AnonymousAda profile has tens of thousands of tweets, and she has been active on many other social media forums posting similar content. To our dismay, both Keeping Kids in School PAC not only refused to investigate or denounce these harmful views, they doubled down and reiterated their support and endorsements.

Not Just a WCASD Problem

Around the same time, we started hearing from citizens in other communities with similar concerns. After seeing our social media posts under Concerned WCASD Constituents, fellow constituents from all over the region reached out voicing concerns about similarly problematic candidates endorsed by KKIS in their own communities. What’s more, many of them had ALSO reached out directly to KKIS to express their concerns, and like us, had been ignored. In the words of a constituent from a neighboring county who attempted to alert KKIS of a problematic candidate in their community:

“I have been trying for weeks to engage with KKIS... I’m not sure what else to do, I have no experience in political campaigning but our district is very diverse and the minorities and marginalized groups in our community need protection from these dishonest bigots.”

Hearing from constituents in other regions with similar concerns regarding KKIS candidates in their communities confirmed our fear that what is happening in our WCASD community is not a coincidence or an isolated incident, but rather, a pattern.

So we started to investigate.

And what we found is alarming.

Even more troubling, our investigation and the materials we are sharing are limited to content that was posted publicly. In other words, what we are sharing is content these candidates felt comfortable sharing with the entire world – it’s scary to think what views these or other candidates may be espousing or promoting privately.

Decide for Yourself

Please view the gallery and video below to learn about some of the objectionable candidates that Keeping Kids in School PAC continues to knowingly endorse. What we are presenting below is just a sample of the content we and our neighbors in other communities have uncovered, which again, has all been posted publicly under the likeness and other identifying details of the candidates. Meanwhile, our investigation continues. We are still working through the list of candidates that have been sent from our neighboring communities. If you have additional information about a candidate in your community, please contact us here.