At a recent meeting of the Loudoun County school board, a teacher quit and said that the district was too focused on Critical Race Theory. This was a big deal.
Laura Morris, a teacher at Lucketts Elementary School, informed the board why she was leaving in a very excited way. She said she was leaving because the school was too focused on “equity trainings” and political agendas.
Morris gave a heated speech in which she stated she was unhappy with way the district was running things. She claimed she couldn’t support a club that pushes ideas that go against her Christian values. She claimed that even though the district had a lot of money and resources, she didn’t think she could teach there.
Morris also mentioned that she was worried that the division didn’t care about those who were scared. She said that the rules were very severe for anyone who wished to speak at board meetings. She was furious about letters from the superintendent telling staff not to disagree and the temptation to tell on coworkers who disagreed with the school board’s rules.
The instructor talked about her time in equity training, where she learned that “white, Christian, able-bodied females” like her had influence in the school system and that this needed to change. Morris said she couldn’t stand being part of a system that forces kids who are already weak to believe in certain political ideas.
She ended her resignation by talking to the school board directly. She claimed she was abandoning their training and practices, as well as her role in carrying out what she considers are destructive goals. Morris told parents and workers to look into other ways to teach their kids, such sending them to private schools.
Even though Loudoun County has been in the news a lot lately because of the debate over whether or not to teach Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools, they didn’t want to say anything about Morris’s retirement. Some parents and teachers have complained that CRT is unpatriotic and divisive, while others think it’s important to look back at America’s racial history.
The school board has been in the news for unpleasant things, such suspending physical education instructor Byron “Tanner” Cross for not using the pronouns that students wanted him to. The district plans to appeal, even though a court told them to restore. The board also debated about letting transgender youngsters use bathrooms and locker rooms that are only for males or girls. This plan caused hours of public debate and was placed on hold for more thought.
Morris’s departure shows that the argument over CRT and other controversial topics in education is still going on. Her choice to leave shows how tense things are in the overall school system and how hard it is to find common ground between different ideologies and points of view in public institutions.
