Indoctrination claims rejected by state schools

2 districts contest document

Administrators at two Arkansas school districts say that a list provided to reporters by the state Department of Education of purported instances of prohibited “indoctrination” includes false claims against their schools.

Lakeside School District Superintendent Bruce Orr said Wednesday the “issues” listed in the Education Department’s document regarding his district do not reflect violations of the state’s rules prohibiting indoctrination.

The document lists “issues” in which school districts or associated groups reportedly violated the state’s ban on indoctrination

and critical race theory in Arkansas schools, as well as actions taken by the Education Department in response.

Orr also said that, in a meeting earlier that day, Education Department Secretary Jacob Oliva confirmed the specific “issues” attributed to his district were not violations.

“That was cleared up today that that was not a violation,” he said. “We’re going back to school.”

The Education Department, however, denies that such confirmation was given.

“The secretary did not tell the districts they violated the executive order or law, nor did he tell them they did not violate the EO [executive order] or law,” agency spokesperson Kimberly Mundell said in an email Friday.

Orr said he firmly believes the secretary did so, however.

“He told me, ‘You do not have any indoctrination violations,’ because that was my first question that I asked him,” he said in an interview Friday.

“I know what I heard and I am a hundred percent positive about that.”

According to Orr, Oliva told the superintendent that the “issues” listed in the document “were just things that had been turned in to the office.”

Mundell likewise said the document “reflects examples from around the state that were submitted to the department.” The spokesperson did not respond to questions over whether the agency stood by the veracity of the examples provided in the document, which was provided to news agencies in response to requests for evidence of prohibited indoctrination taking place in Arkansas schools.

The Pulaski County

Special School District also denied an issue the list attributes to them.

District spokesperson Jessica Duff said in an email that the document’s claim that their elementary school marquees displayed messages about Pride month were false.

Duff confirmed that other claims directed against the school district in the document were accurate, however.

The Fayetteville and North Little Rock school districts are also named in the list, as well as Arkansas State University and education nonprofit Code.org.

Both an executive order that Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed on her first day in office and the LEARNS Act prohibit indoctrination and the teaching of critical race theory in schools. The state describes these bans as efforts to prevent teachings that are “antithetical to the traditional American values of neutrality, equality, and fairness.”

“As a state, we need to focus on ensuring that students can read on grade level, solve mathematical problems, and are prepared for college, work, and life,” Mundell wrote in her statement Thursday. “Indoctrination has no place in schools, and instead of telling students what to think, our priority should always be on teaching them how to think.”

The language used in the state’s indoctrination rules are similar to a federal memo and executive order signed under former President Donald Trump’s administration as far back as 2020, as well as Republican-sponsored legislation in other states.

Critics, meanwhile, argue the state’s powers to modify curricula and trainings under the rules are unclear and unnecessary.

“I don’t know of any K-12 institutions that [teach] CRT,” Victoria Groves-Scott, dean of the University of Central Arkansas College of Education, said in July. “People worry about [it] and it’s not happening.”

CLAIMS REFUTED, ACKNOWLEDGED

According to Orr, a photograph in the document that depicts a slide presented in a classroom was taken several years ago, well before the state’s rules about indoctrination were implemented. Even so, the superintendent said the slide was a timeline of the nation’s history, and that it’s a part of the framework of several classes because of that historical component.

“We were told if you teach the frameworks then you’re fine,” he said, describing Oliva’s visits to educational cooperatives earlier in the year to provide guidance on the LEARNS Act.

A presentation given to cooperatives and dated May 2 includes a slide titled “Additional Clarity,” which quotes a section from Sanders’ executive order that states, “Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the discussion of ideas and history of the concepts described in subsection (c) or shall be construed to prohibit the discussion of public policy issues of the day and related ideas that individuals may find unwelcome, disagreeable or offensive.”

A second photo shows what appears to be a screenshot of a document titled “Sex, Gender & Society.” According to Orr that document “was one hundred percent not used.”

“It was a document on a website that we used a video off of,” he said.

Duff said that, while the Pulaski County Special School District denies claims that its elementary schools posted messages about Pride month on their marquees, the district acknowledges that other claims directed against it are accurate.

The Education Department document states the district “allowed teachers to hang divisive materials in their classrooms, including the pride flag.”

“This politicized symbol gives students the impression that only one outlook on gender and sexuality is acceptable in schools,” the document states.

The list also states the district posted Pride messages on social media.

Duff said the flags “were hanging in classrooms when the photos were taken,” adding that this happened before the first day of school. She also acknowledged that a post was made on district and school social media pages on June 1, the first day of Pride month.

Several of the other entities listed in the document, including Arkansas State University, acknowledged they responded to issues reported to them by the Education Department.

“We have addressed the issue to the satisfaction of the Department of Education,” university spokesperson Jeff Hankins said in an email.

An Arkansas State University team gave a presentation to North Little Rock High School teachers on June 9, titled “Culturally Responsive Practices in PBIS,” according to emails obtained by an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request.

PBIS stands for “Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.” It is an “evidence-based, tiered framework for supporting students’ behavioral, academic, social, emotional, and mental health,” according to the website for the Center on PBIS.

The list provided by the state Department of Education states the presentation contained “divisive materials.”

Among the divisive issues reportedly brought up during the presentation were instructions that participants “acknowledge that [they] harbor unconscious biases,” and positively presenting “actions taken to appease leftists in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, including removing police departments from schools, removing historical monuments, and renaming brands like Aunt Jemima syrup.”

The Education Department contacted the university, as well as the North Little Rock School District, according to the list. The agency said both the university and the district said they planned to “revise their internal approval process for teacher training materials and to end the dissemination of divisive content.”

The specific training provided “will not be presented again,” according to a June 22 email from Anne Merten, project program manager and PBIS Resource Center director for the Center for Community Engagement at the university, to Hankins and Lance G. Bryant, associate dean of the College of Education and Behavioral Science.

North Little Rock School District spokesperson Dustin Barnes did not respond to a message requesting comment on the training and the state’s response.

The Fayetteville School District received a call from the agency in February in response to possible violations, according to emails sent between district spokesperson Alan Wilbourn and KUAF reporter Matthew Moore.

A training session happened Feb. 16 at Fayetteville High School, with 112 staff members, or roughly 40% of the school’s faculty, attending, according to the district.

The district purportedly violated the state’s indoctrination rule when it asked students for their “gender or gender identity” in a cultural climate survey. The Education Department document states a survey was also given out during a required professional development training that included a prompt asking whether respondents rejected “any privileges that come with white racial identity,” and if they were “brave equity warriors.”

In March, Sanders criticized the district over the survey. The governor said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that her administration “will not tolerate CRT or indoctrination in Arkansas schools,” and that her office had contacted the district “to ensure teachers aren’t forced to sign this pledge.”

In a statement to news outlets, Wilbourn said at the time, “the handout was part of a professional development session where teachers studied their student data in categories such as homeless population, race and ethnicity, percentage of students with a disability, and percentage of economically disadvantaged students.

“The handout was for self-reflection. While attendees were asked to complete the confidential reflection, no teacher was compelled to complete the handout. No information was collected from the handout. No handouts were submitted for review.”

Wilbourn declined to comment further on Friday, since the items “occurred months ago and have been addressed,” he said.

Code.org received a letter earlier this year from the agency “asking for confirmation that our professional learning for educators is fully compliant with Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” according to an email from a spokesperson at the organization. Code.org complied with the request.

“Code.org curriculum and professional learning materials, including the ones included in your inquiry, are open source under a Creative Commons license, with options for varied local implementation approaches,” the nonprofit said. “State and local education leaders may include, adapt, or not include these materials to ensure they meet the needs of local contexts.”

LIST’S ORIGINS

The Education Department provided the document outlining examples of indoctrination in schools, but such a list first appears to have been offered to Moore, the KUAF reporter, by governor’s office spokesperson Alexa Henning. The offer was made during an exchange on Aug. 17 on X.

Moore wrote, “I’ve asked @ArkansasEd multiple times for specific examples of indoctrination being taught. They have declined to provide examples or not responded to my requests for comment. #arpx.”

Henning replied to the post, writing, “What’s your email? Happy to send.”

Mundell later provided a list to news outlets. She did not directly respond to questions last week about who wrote the document or how examples were submitted to the agency, except that they “were brought to our attention” and came “from around the state.”

Sanders’ post about the Fayetteville School District included a link to a Fox News article published the same day. Both the post and article were written two days after the Washington County chapter of Moms for Liberty posted photos of the questionnaire on social media.

Jimmie Cavin, a self-described First Amendment advocate, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with Arkansas State University on June 21, in which he asked for the presentation.

The previous day, Cavin sent an email to a group of recipients that included Oliva, as well as North Little Rock School District administrators, lawmakers and media outlets.

“I want to make each of you aware that the North Little Rock School District has blatantly violated Governor Sanders Executive Order To Prohibit Indoctrination And Critical Race Theory In Schools,” he wrote.

Cavin addressed the Education Department secretary, writing that he “would appreciate you personally contacting me to discuss this matter.”

He closed the email by saying the presentation was “nothing short of dangerous and must be stopped. There needs to be accountability to those involved.”

Duff, the spokesperson for the Pulaski County Special School District, said she wasn’t sure who notified the Education Department of the district’s purported violations.

“I don’t know where they got the information from,” she said. “I know it was posted at one point on a Facebook group.”

Moms for Liberty of Pulaski County posted a photo of a Pride flag in a classroom on Facebook on July 26. The photo was also used in the Education Department’s list of indoctrination examples.

“If you are a failing school that has a pride flag bigger than your US Flag, you may have lost your way,” the group wrote.

LETTER TO OLIVA

Orr, the Lakeside superintendent, sent an email to Oliva on Thursday, following their meeting the previous day.

In the email, Orr expressed his appreciation for the secretary’s agreement to meet and described his approach and demeanor in notifying the previous superintendent of the accusations as “professional.”

“However, I am still uncertain how anonymous, unverified, allegations ended up on a document titled Indoctrination and CRT examples in Arkansas and Governor Sanders Administrative Actions,” he continued.

The superintendent criticized the lack of clear process with regard to the state’s distribution of the document to the media. Orr said he hoped that, when an accusation is made, the Education Department would follow a process in which the agency investigates the facts of the case and a clear determination of a violation is declared. He said the lack of an overt process “leaves the determination unclear to the public.”

“Should the Department of Education be responsible for the dissemination of this untruthful statement about Lakeside or any district, even after determining the accusations to be untrue, I am of the opinion that such an act can be deemed misleading to the residents of Arkansas and my district,” he said.

“If there’s an accusation that’s not accurate, I don’t know why that goes on a list,” Orr said on Friday. “That seems misleading.”

He also described the state’s rules prohibiting indoctrination as “too broad.”

“That’s where everybody really struggles with that whole concept of critical race theory and indoctrination, because, truly, the definition lies in the eye of the beholder,” he said.

Orr said that schools need more support in determining what violates this state’s ban.

“But that’s the thing,” he said. “I don’t think they want to give us guidance on that.”