After being elected to the school board on Nov. 8, six members endorsed by the parental rights in education group Moms for Liberty banned Critical Race Theory (CRT) and set up a process to eliminate sexually explicit books at their first meeting.
On Tuesday, the Berkeley County School Board in South Carolina passed a resolution 6-2 that prohibits CRT from being taught in the classroom and voted 8-0 to form a committee to review books that have been flagged for sexually explicit content. The board also voted 6-3 to fire the school district’s superintendent Deon Jackson and the district’s lawyer Tiffany Richardson.
“In the community many people know that these candidates support parental rights, but not only that, they support transparency,” Christi Dixon, the chair of the Berkeley County Moms for Liberty chapter, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They want to make sure schools are safe. They want to make sure that financially [the school] is responsible with all the funding. They also want to make sure that our teachers get the support and all their needs are met in the classroom.”
The board voted 6-1 to appoint former school administrator Dr. Anthony Dixon as the new superintendent of the school district after two school board members walked out following the firing of Jackson, who was hired in May 2021. Jackson left immediately after being terminated along with several teachers attending the board meeting, and it is unclear what led to the firing of Jackson.
“We understand that the public wants and deserves answers regarding Mr. Jackson’s and Ms. Richardson’s termination, but the prospect of litigation and the fact that their termination involve personnel issues limit our ability to comment fully at this time,” Mac McQuillin, board chair, told ABC News 4. “However, we expect to be able to share our rationale in the future, and we are confident that we made a decision that is in the best interest of the District and its students.”
At the meeting, the board defined CRT using the Goldwater Institute’s definition saying it is “a perspective on modern life — a worldview — that believes all the events and ideas around us in politics, education, entertainment and the media, the workplace and beyond must be explained in terms of racial identities.”
The book review committee approved by the board will be composed of librarians, educators, parents and a mental health professional, the board explained at the meeting.
John Sherer casts a vote using a swab at Dreher High School on June 9, 2020 in Columbia, South Carolina. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Nationwide, 49% of Moms for Liberty-endorsed school board candidates won their election, with 76% being first-time candidates, according to the Moms for Liberty website. More than 500 candidates were endorsed by the parental rights in education group. (RELATED: ‘Vote Like A Mother’: Parental Rights Groups Notch Key School Board Wins Across The Country)
“We’ve got a lot of distractions, we went through COVID-19 and there was a lot of learning loss and a lot of emotional issues that children had to overcome by getting them back into class in-person. That helped to alleviate a lot of that,” Dixon told the DCNF. “But our county’s testing scores are below the state average, across the board. We’ve got to focus on getting the foundational education of these children as a top priority so that these kids can be successful throughout their school career and into adulthood. I think that the direction that this board will take us is going to be successful in that.”
The Berkeley County School Board did not immediately respond the DCNF’s request for comment.
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