The Stafford County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will discuss the issues of Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project. Elected leaders on the top governing body want to know if either is being taught in the county's public schools.
The issue was originally placed on the agenda by Hartwood District Supervisor Gary Snellings on August 17, who asked outgoing schools Dr. Scott Kizner to attend the meeting to answer questions from Board members. Kizner had a previous engagement and couldn't attend, County Administrator Fred Pressley emailed Board members.
"This is totally unacceptable!" replied Snellings in an email on August 10, when he learned Kizner declined the request to appear. "The school division has known for almost two months that CRT was going to be on our agenda."
Rock Hill District Supervisor Crystal Vanuch, the Board Chairman, also replied to Pressley's email, noting Kizner's decision to pass up the Board's invitation "doesn't look good for our schools."
CRT is a decades-old academic framework examining how race and racism influence politics, culture, and law. Over the summer, parents not only in our area but across the country have packed local school board meetings protesting the practice they say paints all whites as "oppressors" and people of all other skin tones victims.'
Since he began talking about the issue in July, multiple Stafford County residents have emailed Snellings, who represents the Hartwood District.
Please do not approve CRT into our schools. It'll do nothing but continue to divide and cause more hate. Our kids will be brainwashed to not love who they are as well as others. CRT is irrelevant to what our kids need to be taught to be successful in life. Please don't allow this hateful teaching in our schools.
-- Stephanie Mojica
"I do not want to but I feel if this is brought into the curriculum I will be pulling my daughter out of the public school system here in Stafford county and will either homeschool or send to a private school. My daughter as many other students have been taught to always read a book and not judge it by its cover. I feel that CRT teaches them to strictly look at the cover."
-- Denny Kelly Jr.
A representative from the School Division will attend the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, September 7, at 2 p.m. to answer the supervisors' questions. The meeting will be held at the county's government center, at 1300 Courthouse Road.
During a Board of Supervisors meeting last month, Snellings recounted how he had contacted members of the County School Board to ask about plans to teach the 1619 Project-- a long-form journalism project with topics like "America wasn't a democracy until black Americans made it one," and "American Capitalism is brutal. You can trace that to the plantation."
Historians have called the writing into question, questioning its accuracy. It was published in August 2019, on the 4ooth anniversary of the arrival of slaves in Virginia.
Snellings says he also asked School Board members if the division is teaching critical race theory, college-level material that works injects race into every facet of U.S. culture.
"What really concerns me is that the School Board should already know what's being taught in their schools. They should already know what is being taught and what is not being taught. That's a real concern now," said Snellings, who'll be retiring from the Board of Supervisors on December 31.
Also, during that meeting, Falmouth District Supervisor Meg Bohmke said that she had talked to teachers in the Stafford School system who say that, while the name is not being used, there have been lessons being taught that fit the description of Critical Race Theory.
A total of 21 states have banned the teaching of critical race theory in public schools, including neighboring states such as West Virginia and North Carolina. This past week in neighboring Prince William County, parents blasted the county School Board for an Equity Statement the Board approved in May, calling to hire teachers based on skin color to reflect the minority student population better.
Critical Race Theory believes that structural racism is embedded in many U.S. institutions, which runs contrary to long-held beliefs such as equal opportunity. Opponents of the theory believe that it creates division by asking adherents to judge people based on skin color rather than character content.
Another issue is that of the 1619 Project, a series of essays published by the New York Times that attempts to reframe the story of the country's founding by establishing from when the first African-American slave stepped foot in what would become the U.S. in the year 1619. The project, spearheaded by then Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, has come under fire by historians across the political spectrum who dispute many of the project's assertions.
One such assertion that the American Revolution was fought to maintain the country's culture of slavery was disputed by Northwestern University historian Leslie Harris. Harris was a fact-checker with the 1619 Project who recounted in an article with Politico disputed that claim saying that the Revolution was actually a disruptor of slavery in America. According to Harris, Jones went with her version for the project despite Harris' claim to the contrary.
