At the December 21, 2023 board meeting, the FHSD board voted to remove social justice standards from curriculum via the following motion:

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.

Facts:

  • This year the combined enrollment in the two elective courses across three high schools is 102 students.
  • In 2021, the district hired self-described Critical Race Theory expert Dr. LaGarrett King to coach our staff in development of a Critical Theory based curriculum and how to hide it from parents. Watch for yourself.
  • The “Social Justice” standards, developed by the progressive Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), then became one of the foundations of the written curriculum for the Black History and Black Literature courses:
  • District policy requires board approval of additional standards used in curriculum development beyond state adopted standards. These “Social Justice” standards have never been approved by the board, so their use in the curriculum in 2021 was improper:

  • The high school “Social Justice” standards focus on group identity, intersectionality, identity-based power structures, and student activism – straight out of the CRT playbook. They also have little or nothing to do with the teaching of history and literature. Here are the specific standards referred to:
  • In October of 2021, Randy Cook sent a letter to the board which described how the curriculum was based on CRT ideology. Neither the board nor then-Superintendent Dr. Hoven ever responded to or disputed any specifics in this letter. Mr. Cook went on to become a winning candidate in the April 2022 school board election, running on a platform of eliminating progressive political activism from school curricula.
  • At the December board meeting, the district’s chief academic officer stated that they will not offer a class in the course catalog for registration unless it has a board approved curriculum. This is false – when the Black History and Black Literature classes were first created, they were added to the course catalog in December 2020 so students could register for them for the 2021 school year, even though their curriculum had not been developed and would not be approved until late summer 2021

Francis Howell Families calls for the district to replace the Black History and Black Literature courses, eliminating the divisive “Social Justice” political agenda.  More students will be interested in quality courses without progressive political ideology and activism. If the classes are being taught objectively, then it should be no trouble to remove the ideologically biased standards and update the curriculum.

December 28, 2023:  Board President Bertrand and Superintendent Roumpos announced plans to update the curriculum so that these courses can continue to be offered next year.  Pending board approval of the new curriculum, this is very good news!

After the sharp left turn taken in 2021 by FHSD, voters in two consecutive elections spoke loudly: They don’t want progressive political agendas in our classrooms.