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While the public comments portion of the Rockbridge County School Board meetings have been significantly more relaxed than in previous years, a few community members expressed some concerns at the Rockbridge County School Board meeting on Feb. 14.
Among the issues addressed were elective opportunities for students with Individualized Education Plans; teacher salaries; and Critical Race Theory (CRT), which was a hot topic at a number of School Board meetings in 2021. - Jennifer Parrent approached the School Board members from a parent’s perspective in the hopes of swaying their stance on the number of electives available to students with an Individualized Education Plan (IED).
“I’m here as an advocate for my son,” Parrent began. “My son is a rising sixth-grader who has an IEP, which as you know is an Individualized Education Plan. The IEP is the document implemented in a school setting to help with specific learning disabilities for students who struggle in a specific learning area. This may mean they need extra support in a specific area like math or reading.”
She continued, “I recently went to a meeting in regards to my son’s IEP at Maury River Middle School. In the meeting, I learned that students with IEPs do not have the ability to pick out any electives for the year due to the current schedule.”
In previous years, the school operated with 60-minute class periods, giving all students an option of two elective courses and a physical education class. Under that schedule, students with IEPs were able to pick one elective that interested them, having the other period reserved for extra academic support. Recently, the school instituted 75-minute class periods, which created time restraints between the academic support described in the IEP and any elective opportunities, Parrent told to the Board.
“I don’t agree with the current schedule and how it impacts the students with a developmental disability to where they’re discriminated and told they are not allowed to participate in any electives,” she said. “Their electives are beneficial for learning life skills, working on specific new trades, and ways to help build students’ competence to be successful. I know firsthand that my son does not like to be singled out nor should any child for that matter. … We want our children to be successful and have the competency they deserve.” - Katelyn Nicely, vice president of the Rockbridge-Lexington Education Association, talked to the Board about the need to improve teacher salaries.
She commended Superintendent Dr. Phillip Thompson and Chief Finance Officer Jason Kirby for addressing teacher salaries in the FY24 budget.
“Increases in health insurance, coupled with inflation, have had a negative impact on teacher retention. Many teachers have found it difficult to support themselves financially and have had to pick up a second job to make ends meet,” Nicely told the Board. “A raise would help offset some of the financial stress and get exhausted teachers’ fair compensation.”
Nicely presented statistics from the Virginia Department of Education’s 2022-2023 salary study. The results placed the district well below the average pay grade, ranking RCPS at 108 out of 131 school divisions for new teachers and 117th for teachers with 30-plus years of experience. “We urge you to make it a priority to help raise our standards in Virginia,” she said.
“We are fully aware that the financial burden falls heavily on local funds to meet what the governor has projected,” she continued. “However, we feel it critical to our community that our students and our educators are valued, and that funds are allocated to ensure their ongoing success. We ask that you invest money into keeping and attracting highly qualified professional educators to Rockbridge County.” - Nancy Cuzzimano shared her concern that Critical Race Theory is being taught in public schools.
“CRT. Do we really know what CRT is and why they want to teach it at our schools?” she asked the Board. “Instruction at schools K-12 is to view racism as a cornerstone of American society and government through a Marxist analytical lens. The purpose of CRT? To break society thus being able to remake it with different wants. It is derived from atheist thinkers who view Christianity as an instrument of capitalist expression.”
Originally developed in the 1980s, Critical Race Theory was championed by Harvard graduate Derrick Bell, explained a 2021 article published by The New York Times. His theory determined that racism was a feature of American life integrated into the nation’s societal structure.
Moving into the 21st century, a law professor at UCLA School of Law, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, is credited with coining the term. Elaborating on Bell’s ideas, Crenshaw proposed that racism is facilitated in American society by culture, preexisting laws, and systems, The New York Times article states.
The theory became a polarizing political issue following the 2020 presidential election, as critics alleged that it was being practiced in public schools throughout the country.
When the issue came before the Rockbridge County School Board in the summer of 2021, Thompson in a policy presentation denied that RCPS has adopted any policy or curriculum that endorses the teaching of Critical Race Theory.
“Until about several months ago, I had never heard of it,” Thompson said at the time.
Nevertheless, several local residents continued to say that fall that CRT was being taught in the schools. Cuzzimano, in her presentation to the RCSB, said, “The Virginia schools including Rockbridge have received federal funds in the form of a book called ‘Cultural Competence Now,’ and it states 56 exercises to help educators understand bias, racism and privilege. Receiving these books are prohibited. Many lawsuits are now being piled against CRT. There is no compelling interest to instruct young Americans to hate their country, and that’s what CRT does.”
Cusimano concluded her talk with a question for the Board, “…I need to know – Do you have litter boxes in your high school, yes or no?”
She was referring to allegations, mostly from social media last year that have since been debunked, that some public schools had installed litter boxes in student bathrooms to accommodate for nonbinary students identifying as cats or animals.
The Board refrained from commenting. However, Thompson assured Cuzzimano that litter boxes are not allowed inside of the RCPS facilities.
