Parents in a suburban Dallas school district made national news this week by overwhelmingly rejecting a patently anti-American, unlawful, and unconstitutional effort to impose critical race theory on their children. It’s an example that other parents, concerned about the indoctrination their children are receiving in their schools, would do well to emulate.
Southlake, Texas parents have accomplished the first step in taking back their school district by electing Cam Bryan and Hannah Smith to three-year terms on the board of the Carroll Independent School District. The results weren’t even close. Bryan and Smith blew away the district’s “woke” incumbents by roughly 70 percent of the vote.
At issue was the implementation of something called the Cultural Competency Action Plan (CCAP).
With parents sidelined from full participation in their children’s classroom by COVID-19 restrictions, the school board tried to sneak a vote on a resolution to implement the CCAP, which was drafted and backed by the Southlake Anti-Racist Coalition (SARC). A Freedom of Information request by concerned parents found Carroll ISD Board president Michelle Moore and vice president Todd Carlton in violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act. The two were arrested and indicted in Tarrant County last month for deliberating outside of an authorized meeting.
While it is understandable for Moore, a lifelong social justice activist, would be a zealous supporter of the CCAP, it is less clear what Carlton, whose day job is president of the Texas division of BNY Mellon Wealth Management, had to gain from his backing of the policy.
And what a pernicious policy it is. Among other things, the CCAP would require race-based hiring, as well as the creation of a database to track white students’ microaggressions made “knowingly” and “unknowingly” toward minority students, and the removal of resource officers (off-duty police officers) from campus.
Moore and Carlton are diametrically opposed to what the parents of Southlake want for their children—equality for all under the current Carroll ISD code of conduct and excellence in education. Happily, the truth was exposed, and the good people of Southlake made their displeasure known loud and clear. Families confronting critical race theory in other school districts may take inspiration from Carroll’s resistance, and act accordingly.