Quaker Valley School District officials: No critical race theory is taught in QV schools

Critical race theory is not part of the Quaker Valley curriculum and is not being taught in its schools, district officials said on Sept. 21.

Assistant Superintendent Andrew Surloff said it’s a college and law school level topic and is not something he has found being taught at the K-12 level.

“We don’t have anything in the curriculum that is critical race theory or espouses toward or aligns specifically with critical race theory,” he said.

Critical race theory is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism, according to a report from The Associated Press. Scholars developed it during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they saw as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

It focuses on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society.

Surloff said the district is in the process of evaluating its curriculum and does not see the theory being added to the district.

“It’s not something that we would go through and adopt as a major project,” Superintendent Tammy Andreyko said. “It’s a social construct.

”It shouldn’t be confused with culturally responsive teaching, understanding our children, answering their questions, understanding their practices. Every public school district in the United States is required to teach facts from history based on those state standards that we’re required and responsible as a public school to teach.”

Board members said there were some concerns in the community about teachers introducing material related to critical race theory.

Andreyko said teaching subjects such as westward expansion, slavery, the Civil War, the Constitution and women’s rights may involve difficult discussions.

“Facts aren’t political,” she said. “They are facts. We have to separate the two a little bit. We do have conversations related to what is happening in the national communication. What is happening in communication and happening on television or what questions we’ve had in the community.

“Our teachers have been very responsive to talk to us about what’s happening in their classroom, and we’re really proud of what we do.

”I think it’s important that we as a group respond that creating equitable learning for all students, making them feel safe in our classrooms, having critical thinking, exploring historic and contemporary issues from different perspectives is something that we take a diverse student population and have them fall in love with learning.”

The discussion about critical race theory came after several letters to the editor, including one from resident Charles Wolfe about the district possibly being on its way to teaching the theory and what he called a “racist ideology.”

Wolfe participated in the board meeting via Zoom.

During the public comment section of the meeting, he criticized the board and administration’s take on what was referred to as CRT and said he would be willing to present what it “really is.”

Resident Kirk Ford also participated via Zoom.

He thanked the district for a “responsible” discussion about CRT and addressing the subject in a “mature way.”