Wokeness and the radical agenda in Virginia Beach Schools

WOKENESS CHECKER

In the past, I have supported the idea of culturally responsive practices.  The idea that we need to teach ALL history, even if it is related to dark spots of the past, to include issues such as slavery, the Trail of Tears, indentured servitude and more.  I also felt that we should have more diverse representations in our curriculum.  However, ​culturally responsive practices has become about implementing radical ideologies and we must stop it before it tears our country apart!

The Virginia Inquiry Collaborative (VIC) consists of several school districts including Virginia Beach Schools that came together to rewrite Virginia Social Studies Curriculum. 

​"Facing History and Ourselves" is an organization that partnered with  the VIC to hold professional development for teachers.  During the 20-21 School Year a memo was sent to all secondary principals from the VBCPS Dept of Teaching and Learning looking for social studies teachers to attend a professional development series with "Facing History and Ourselves" to address "historically rooted disparities".  The partnership team for the professional development series included VA Beach Schools.

Facing History and ourselves advocates for the 1619 Project and other leftist ideologies and providing those resources to teachers.  Check it out for yourself!  They state on their website that we have a "white supremacist culture".

Click on this link to see the Professional Development for yourself.  Workshop II includes the slide below.  "The manifestation of a dominant narrative of whiteness is "white privilege" and “Whiteness” is not about skin color but about a narrative of privilege and supremacy".  Also, "if we live in America, we are racism-breathers".
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This is shameful that VB Schools is involved in such divisive rhetoric and I personally believe it is discriminatory.  The EEOC's definition of discrimination is "Race discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because he/she is of a certain race or because of personal characteristics associated with race (such as hair texture, skin color, or certain facial features). Color discrimination involves treating someone unfavorably because of skin color complexion". The civil rights act states that No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

​Furthermore, the Virginia Inquiry Collaborative has lesson plans for "Equality".  Their suggested reference material is a Gloria Steinem video advocating for abortion and the Gay Manifesto by Carl Whitman which includes the following excerpt:

​Slide from Session II of "Equity in Teaching and Learning" 

The whole slide presentation can be found here. The video of the training can be found here

Memos looking for teachers to participate