Flyer criticizes school chief’s Capitol riot post

REDDING — Some town residents opened their mailboxes last week to find a flyer critical of a months-old Facebook post from the Easton-Redding-Region 9 school superintendent written in the wake of the U.S. Capitol riot.

In the sort of language typically used in campaign flyers, the yellow-and-black mailer calls Superintendent Rydell Harrison’s post “socially threatening language,” and claims parents shouldn’t fear their child “is being politically influenced or victimized by one-sided partisanship.”

Harrison, a Black superintendent who leads a predominantly white school district, apologized in January, saying “While my intention was not to be divisive, it has become clear to me that my post has offended some members of our community and for that, I am truly sorry.”

He could not be reached for comment for this story.

The flyer was circulated by a local group called Nonpartisan Action for a Better Redding.

Lewis Andrews, the group’s president and a former executive director for the Yankee Institute for Public Policy, said the group felt Harrison’s apology was only directed at the town school board, when he should have directed his apology at conservatives and Republicans through either a letter or to the town Republican party.

Andrews said the flyer is in response to the district considering how to teach critical race theory, which asks students to examine how race and inequality affect every aspect of society.

“We felt it’s very important to have a neutral figure in charge of the school system as this is going on, and he is not a neutral figure,” said Andrews in a phone interview Wednesday. He also took issue with the 1619 Project, a podcast from The New York Times Magazine that reframed the story of America’s founding around slavery, which has since spawned curriculum materials for classrooms.

Both have proven to be political flashpoints, with some states moving to ban both.

In Easton, a local group headed by a former Region 9 school board member has spoken out against the teaching of critical race theory. Town residents recently defeated a resolution that would have declared racism a public health issue in the municipality.

The mailer comes as town residents last week approved $23 million in funding for Board of Education expenses and nearly $12.7 million for Redding’s part of the Region 9 school budget.

Andrews’ writings include a piece in The Federalist targeting “critical race theory” in the resignation of The New York Times editorial page editor last year. The flyer claims Harrison’s post is the “bitter fruits” of critical race theory.

During two Board of Education meetings in late January, Harrison said the post was not intended to be divisive, but “it has become clear to me that my post has offended some members of our community and for that, I am truly sorry,” he said. “One of our aspirational goals for our students is to build a caring community and I want to make sure my actions reflect that desire as well.”

In the post, Harrison said former President Donald Trump was not the only person responsible for the Jan. 6 riot.