Loudoun County, Virginia seems to have become the epicenter of the school policy battle within our culture wars. Events from that county are also playing a role in the upcoming Virginia gubernatorial election — at least I hope they will. This post is about two developments from Loudoun County that have been reported elsewhere, but may have escaped widespread notice.
Item: The Daily Caller reports that Loudoun County is requiring parents to sign a non-disclosure agreement before it will let them view a curriculum provided to it by “Second Step.” Part of Second Step’s curriculum addresses “anti-racism,” a term coined by radical race-mongering activist Ibram X. Kendi. It also provides a “common language” to “create lasting systematic change.” The curriculum borrows from “Learning for Justice,” the education arm of the radical left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, as well.
As a condition of reviewing the curriculum — something that should be an unconditional parental right — parents must agree that the presentation of the material is “not a public event” and that “copying, broadcasting or recording of any kind is prohibited.” According to the Daily Caller, presentation of the curriculum must be in-person. The Daily Caller also reports that the agreement between the school district and Second Step purports to exempt the curriculum from Virginia Freedom of Information Act requests.
The Second Step curriculum is used in other jurisdictions throughout the country. A glimpse into its radicalism comes from a Utah teacher who resigned rather than subject his students to it. The teacher, Sam Crowly, said he could not “in good conscience” present material that “teaches students that their parents are ‘roadblocks’ to their goals, material which contains propaganda, and encourages students to become activists.” (Emphasis added)
No wonder Second Step and Loudoun County want to limit parents’ ability to view the curriculum.
Item: It’s not just Loudoun County parents who are upset about, and enraged by, what’s going on in the public schools. Students in the county, an estimated 2,500 of them, walked out earlier this week. They were protesting the sexual assault of two female students in girls’ restrooms by a boy dressed as a girl, and the school system’s attempt to cover up the crimes. After the first assault, the school system placed the offender in a second county school, where he committed the second assault.
The walkouts lasted ten minutes.
Footage from Broad Run High School in Ashburn, Virginia, where one of the sexual assaults took place earlier this month, shows students shouting, “Loudoun County protects rapists!” and, “Why didn’t anybody tell us?”
The answer to that question, I’m pretty sure, is that the school system wanted to protect its policy that boys can use girls’ restrooms.
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