With northern Virginia schools in turmoil over Critical Race Theory, one conservative county chose to shut the door on Critical Race Theory.
The Free Lance Star reported that Stafford County’s board of supervisors voted by a 6-0 vote to keep Critical Race Theory and its offshoot 1619 Project out of the Stafford County Schools system. Supervisor Gary Snellings acknowledged that he was not “sure how everybody got upset about this thing.” He said, “Fine… what this resolution says is, we don’t want you to do it in the future.”
One supervisor, Tinesha Allen, was absent for the vote.
Interim school superintendent Stanley Jones said, “The answer to the Critical Race Theory question is simple: We don’t teach it.” Jones added, “We never have. Every single thing we teach is publicly available and developed by the Virginia Department of Education.”
The resolution also eliminated requirements for teachers to have students identify their preferred gender pronouns in schoolwork and identifying documents in school. It also contained a clause that allows Stafford County to “stringently review” funding of programs that could be related to Critical Race Theory or the 1619 Project.
An elementary music teacher, Christian Peabody, blasted the resolution and vote as micromanagement. “We’re not teaching CRT,” he said. “For them to not define exactly what they were talking about without talking to educators is completely against why we have public education in the first place. That strips the sanctity of public education.”
Peabody served as president of the Stafford Education Association for four years, which is the local branch of the left-wing teachers’ union, the National Education Association (NEA). The NEA and other teachers’ unions are publicly supportive of teaching Critical Race Theory, as Accuracy in Academia previously reported.
Critical Race Theory is the flawed theory which claims all longtime or established American institutions, whether they be political, legal, or educational, are inherently racist and are biased against black Americans. It promotes the unproven argument that America has not progressed from the allegedly embedded racism in these institutions, despite history proving the theory and its supporters wrong.
Contrast Stafford County’s response to that of Loudoun County, which has had contentious board meetings on gender pronouns and Critical Race Theory. One of Loudoun County’s board meetings was adjourned early due to protesters shouting down county officials.
Stafford County is located an hour’s drive south (or 40 miles) of Washington, D.C.
