At the December 21, 2023 board meeting the FHSD board voted to approve the following:

Motion to rescind approval, for use of the academic standards titled “Social Justice Standards: The Teaching Tolerance Anti-Bias Framework” as published by Teaching Tolerance, a project of The Southern Poverty Law Center, and any curricula developed using said standards, effective July 1, 2024.
Those standards were one of the foundations the district used when creating the black history and black literature electives with CRT principles.
  • The Southern Poverty Law Center standards were never approved by the board, so their use in our curricula was improper.
  • This action was not last minute, it has been over two years coming.   The current board majority campaigned and were elected on removing divisive ideological indoctrination and CRT from our schools, and they fulfilled this promise last night.
  • Francis Howell Families supports offering Black History and Black Literature elective courses based on robust standards and curriculum WITHOUT progressive political agenda.   We don’t understand why district curriculum leaders have waited so long, but we call on them to quickly replace the curriculum so that these elective courses might be offered as soon as Winter 2024-2025.  Note: the current courses will still be taught this winter.

Important history on this issue at FHSD:

We applaud the board majority for their courage in keeping their campaign promises even in the face of hostile activists and news media.  Please email and thank them this Christmas season:

adam.bertrand@fhsdschools.org, randy.cook@fhsdschools.org, jane.puszkar@fhsdschools.org, ron.harmon@fhsdschools.org, mark.ponder@fhsdschools.org