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This week, the Stafford County Board of Supervisors put its public schools in the spotlight, pressing its top administrator on Critical Race Theory.
In July, Hartwood District Supervisor Gary Snellings had planned to question officials from the county school division about CRT -- a decades-old academic framework examining how race and racism influence politics, culture, and law -- wanting to know if children are being taught the concepts in schools.
After receiving multiple emails from concerned constituents, Snellings took the floor and questioned Interim County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Stanley B. Jones on Tuesday.
Jones said that the schools do not teach the theory in his opening statement, and they never have. Jones also stated that the Virginia Department of Education crafts the school's curriculum and that the theory is not part of that lesson plan.
Jones also expressed that the school board has better things to do than worry about Critical Race Theory. "Quite frankly, we're trying to recover from a pandemic. So most of our focus is on unfinished learning. We've had 18 months without kids in school. That's our focus," said Jones.
Jones referenced a now-deleted video on the Virginia Department of Education's YouTube page. Teachers were encouraged to develop lesson plans on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that focused on racism, not terrorism or the masterminds who carried out the attacks.
Jones distanced the county school divisions from the state's August 18 webinar aimed at teachers across the state, testifying the teacher orientation video didn't contain any mentions of race or the concepts of white privilege.
Potomac Local News reported on the content of the video, where the keynote speaker Dr. Amaarah DeCuir, from the American University School of Education, focused on matters of social justice.
When the word "terrorist" is used, it's most often used to describe people from the Middle East, said DeCuir in the video.
On August 13, the Department of Homeland Security issued a heightened terrorism watch. Anyone who disagrees with the Federal Government's coronavirus mitigation efforts, those who question the results of the 2020 Presidential Election, and those who celebrate religious holidays are now considered a terror threat, NBC News reported.
Rock Hill District Supervisor Crystal Vanuch asked about the schools' equity policy, stating, "the school division will work collaboratively with educators and other key stakeholders to build awareness, solutions, and leadership for social justice."
The division cited the National Equity Project, a California-based education reform organization that works with "oppressive" and "dehumanizing" systems and aims to radically transform them into more liberated institutions, as a resource it used to formulate the statement.
The link showed on the page August but has since been removed from the school division website. The link is one of many resources that could be found on the page, Jones told Vanuch.
Snellings cited a report from a parent of a Brooke Point High School student who claimed that a teacher asked their child to state their preferred pronouns. Over the summer, a teacher in Loudoun County was suspended after declining to adhere to a new policy that requires public schools teachers to refer to children using their preferred pronouns and the bathroom of their choice.
Pointing out the prevalence of identifying pronouns, Snellings reminded Jones that his personal email signature contains a list of personal pronouns he and him. Jones said he did not know Stafford County teachers asking students to identify their pronouns.
Jones warned that any further questions teachers about CRT being taught in the classroom would distract from the division's focus of making up for lost time after test scores fell statewide last year during virtual learning.
School systems in our area and across the country have been dealing with the potential of Critical Race Theory being taught in schools.
