Tri-City school board will ‘take a stand’ on CRT. But will board policy have any impact?

Some members of the Kennewick School Board are claiming CRT is being taught by some teachers in the district. While they did not provide any examples, the district moved toward changing policy to prevent teaching topics that could be considered CRT-related.

At its semi-annual retreat June 8, the board drafted a list of history-related ideas and topics they believe shouldn’t be taught by teachers, though no specific events were included.

The list details nine bullet points they “want to be taught” and eight points they “don’t want to be taught” to students.

“Fact-based education is really what we’re shooting for,” said board president Michael Connors at the June 8 meeting. “We want to make sure what we’re teaching withstands scrutiny, can be verified, double verified — there’s going to be points of view on it, but we want to make sure what we’re teaching is factually correct to the best of our knowledge.

The board on June 22 then introduced new policy based on the list, but tabled a vote on it until August.

Despite previous statements from OSPI and the school district, two of the five school board members say they believe the “principles and tenets” of CRT were being taught in the classroom.

At the June 8 meeting, board member Gabe Galbraith pointed to two examples: A teacher’s book club at Kennewick High School and some teachers who had signed on to the Zinn Education Project pledge.

“I believe that any school or staff that is teaching core principles around CRT — like whiteness, systemic racism, white privilege, individuals being an oppressor or a victim, encouraging discrimination or discrimination practices, and also whether America is systematically racist and being dismantled — to me, is practicing CRT and its principles in our classroom,” he said.

Galbraith said a few teachers were discussing progressive books — such as “How To Be An Antiracist” by Ibram Kendi — during their lunch breaks, and discussing how to be “better educators for our Black, Indigenous and students of color.”

He didn’t name any of the teachers.

He also shared a social media post that suggested a teacher was teaching CRT.

“CRT principles and concepts to do not belong in our classrooms. We must strive for diversity without division,” said Galbraith, adding that he was ready to “take a stand” on the topic.

School board member Ron Mabry pushed back at Galbraith’s allegations, asking him if he knew “for a fact” that the concepts were being taught in the classroom.

“I want to know did it occur. I can say I’m going to go jaywalk, but if I don’t jaywalk I haven’t broken the law,” he said.

Mabry agreed the passages Galbraith cited shouldn’t be taught in class, and said no kid should be taught they’re less because of the color of their skin.

But he said they should be specific about what they’re alleging.

“If we knew a teacher did that, that’s something we can take to the teacher and go to the teacher and say, ‘on a certain day, certain time, certain place, you did this and that is not in line with the principles that we set,” he said.

Mabry said he doesn’t want “any theories that someone came up with” by the “seat of their pants” taught in the school district, and suggested other theories — including any “deep state theories” and mass shooter theories — be banned.

“Are we saying we’re going to tell teachers what they can and can’t read, or is this about what teachers can and can’t teach in their classroom,” asked Superintendent Traci Pierce. She urged the board to be more specific with what they don’t want taught in class.

CRT discussion and policy impact

CRT emerged in the 1970s and was promoted by legal scholars in an effort to examine the law in how it serves the interests of people in power at the expense of others.

The idea is that racism is not just the result of a person’s bias or prejudice, but also is embedded in legal systems and policies where laws and court rulings can perpetuate it.

The issue mostly has been examined in college level courses and aims to understand why some people are treated differently but does not teach that anyone should be treated differently because of their skin color, say researchers.

Conservatives have co-opted it as a broad umbrella term to encompass progressive ways of re-examining the U.S.’s troubled history with slavery, racism and civil rights. They often include works such as The New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning “1619 Project” as CRT.

Some also believe the Zinn Education Project is CRT. One librarian in the Richland School District last year received threats online to her physical well being after signing on to such a pledge.

Board member Micah Valentine defined CRT in a text message to the Tri-City Herald as “the belief that society is organized by racism,” that the only way to “fight racism is to be racist in the opposite direction,” and that “the end goal is achieved when we have dictatorship of the anti-racists which is superior to the federal government.”

“History and CRT are different,” Valentine said at the June 8 meeting.

“CRT is an action. It’s literally tearing down the fundamental society of the United States in order to change it. That’s what CRT does — the actions of CRT tear down the framework, the Judeo-Christian values, of the Western society in order to turn it over,” he continued.

But it’s unclear how much impact the proposed policy may have on what’s taught in the classroom.

“Because CRT isn’t part of the Kennewick School District’s curriculum for certified educators, I doubt last night’s decisions by the board, nor any future actions they decided to take, will have much effect on what’s happening in buildings and classrooms across the district,” said Rob Woodford, president of the Kennewick Education Association teacher’s union, in a June 9 email to the Herald.

But the move might also help sway weary voters who, after two years of COVID lock downs and mask mandates in public and in classrooms, feel dissatisfied with the state of education — a feeling that likely played a role in the recent double levy failure.

‘Antiracist Baby’

The school board at their June 22 meeting voted to also allow a controversial book —“Antiracist Baby,” also by Kendi — to remain on shelves at elementary libraries within the Kennewick School District.

Library materials are curated through a process that’s different from curriculum adoption, and they don’t normally go through school board approval.

But after one community member engaged with the district to reconsider the decision to allow “Antiracist Baby” on library shelves, Superintendent Traci Pierce and an instructional materials committee ultimately took up review of the book and came to the conclusion that it should stay.

That decision was then appealed to the school board for a “final and binding” ruling.

The book has come under fire by some conservatives, most notably by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz this year during the supreme court confirmation hearings of Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The book was recently donated to multiple elementary school libraries in the Kennewick School District. And a few district librarians spoke out against the decision to pull it from their shelves.

“Removing books from the library shelf is removing students and parents’ choice. We must proceed with careful decisions in regards to removing books from libraries,” said Amanda Cone, a librarian at Amistad Elementary School.

Another librarian said she felt the message was not age appropriate, but said it would be good discussion for high school-age students.

“This book goes against practically every point in the policy that we discussed. It does not teach kids to be strong and powerful — it teaches the opposite of that,” Valentine said, adding that he didn’t believe taking “Antiracist Baby” off the shelf was censorship.

Galbraith said he felt the book disparaged “both minorities and whites based on the pictures,” that it didn’t enrich curriculum or provide factual knowledge.

Connors cited an 1982 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court — Island Trees School District v. Pico — where the high court found that schools could not withhold books to suppress ideas.

“Again, I read the book — not a big fan. But I want to be clear: We need to present diverse ideas and learning in our school, even to our youngest learners,” Connors said. “I believe that they need to take the books home, talk to their parents, have those conversations — it is not our position to tell these children what they can and cannot learn.”

Diane Sundvik said there were several books in Kennewick libraries that don’t “enrich curriculum,” but are used to entice and engage young readers — “Captain Underpants,” “Amelia Bedelia,” and the “Harry Potter” series, she listed.

“A lot of parents were very concerned about ‘Harry Potter.’ I gotta say, at the very beginning, I was too until I read them,” she said.

The board ultimately approved Pierce’s decision in a 3-2 vote, with Valentine and Galbraith voting against it — but only after they attempted to overturn the superintendent’s recommendation.