Donnelly: Boards, parent movements have homework to do

Among the big issues, the most substantive concern involves federal and state government overreach into the schools, challenging the local school boards as well as parents. With COVID providing a compelling emergency, local schools and parents saw their authority swept aside by government mandates to close schools, and later to impose rigid masking and vaccination policies. European schools, recognizing the harm of closures, remained open throughout the pandemic.

Parents felt powerless. Their fears seemed justified when, in October, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland asked the FBI to form a task force to address parent threats against school officials, responding with uncharacteristic speed to a request from the National School Boards Association.

Faced with a backlash, the NSBA apologized for its letter, interpreted to compare parents to “domestic terrorists.” Garland has yet to retract his order to the FBI, nor has he identified the specific threats. The implications of an FBI with a murky mission are chilling.

Second, parents are concerned that far-reaching theories regarding the role of race in our country’s history and current systems — aka critical race theory — are percolating into Washington’s diversity and equity training. Some local school board directors passionately deny that CRT, emanating decades ago from strongly left-leaning university professors and supported by committed followers, is being taught. Yet advocates from beyond our region appear determined. The National Education Association, for example, supports “curriculum … informed by academic frameworks including critical race theory.”

Fuzzy wording, but a dozen states aren’t taking chances. Idaho was the first to sign into law a measure to withhold funding from schools incorporating lessons, for example, “that individuals, by virtue of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color or national origin, are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color or national origin.”

Added to the turbulence are concerns over school performance. Challenger school board candidate Jorge Bailey, for example, campaigned on the assertion Vancouver schools had low levels of students testing at grade levels, including only 42 percent in math, and 44 percent in science as of 2018-2019. A worthy concern.

Both sides — the elected school boards and the parent-driven challenger movements — have homework to do. Today’s school board members must acknowledge that parents’ concerns are valid, even if derived from outside our region. Parent groups must hone to high standards of discourse, both written and spoken, so that their statements are effectively conveyed. Any threats should be documented by the recipients and handled first by local and state authorities.