Global Courant
O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — In the national calculation that followed the police killing of George Floyd three years ago, about 2,000 protesters took to the streets in suburban St. Louis urging the predominantly white Francis Howell School District to address racial discrimination. The school board responded with a resolution promising to do better.
Now the board, led by new conservative board members elected since last year, has withdrawn that anti-racism resolution and copies of it will be removed from school buildings.
The resolution adopted in August 2020 “promises our learning community to speak out strongly against racism, discrimination and senseless violence against people regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or ability.
“We will promote racial healing, especially for our black and brown students and families,” the resolution states. “We will no longer be silent.”
The board’s decision follows a trend that began with opposition to COVID-19 pandemic policies in localities across the country. School board elections have become intense political battlefieldswith political action groups successfully electing candidates who pledge to take action against teachings about race and sexuality, removing books deemed offensive, and shutting down transgender-inclusive sports teams.
The Francis Howell district is one of Missouri’s largest, with 17,000 students, approximately 87% of whom are white. The vote, which took place Thursday at an often contentious meeting, rescinded resolutions 75 days after “a majority of current members of the Board of Education had not signed or otherwise voted to pass the resolution.”
While a few others will also be canceled, the anti-racism resolution was clearly the focus. Dozens of people opposed to the repeal filled the board meeting, many with placards reading “Forward, not backward.”
Kimberly Thompson, who is black, attended Francis Howell schools in the 1970s and 1980s, and her two children graduated from the district. She described several instances of racism and urged the board to stick to its 2020 commitment.
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“This resolution means hope to me, hope for a better Francis Howell School District,” Thompson said. “It means setting expectations for the behavior of students and staff, regardless of their personal opinion.”
The council’s vice president, Randy Cook, said phrases in the resolution such as “systemic racism” are undefined and mean different things to different people. Another board member, Jane Puszkar, said the resolution made no sense.
“What did it really do,” she asked. “How effective has it really been?”
Since the resolution was passed, the composition of the board has been reversed. As of 2020, only two board members remain. Five new members elected in April 2022 and April 2023 received the support of the conservative political action committee Francis Howell Families.
In 2021, the PAC described the anti-racism resolution as “awakened activism” and drafted an alternative resolution to oppose “all forms of racial discrimination, including promoting principles of the racially divisive Critical Race Theory, labels of white privilege, enforced justice of outcomes, identity politics, intersectionalism, and Marxism.”
Cook, who was elected in 2022 and sponsored the repeal, said there is no plan to adopt that alternative or anything else.
“In my opinion, the school board shouldn’t be in the business of dividing the community,” Cook said. “We should only be concerned with educating students here and keep ourselves out of national politics.”
Many districts are dealing with debates on topics mislabeled as critical race theory. School administrators say the scientific theory based on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions is not taught in K-12 schools.
Others argue that school systems misspend, perpetuate division, and disgrace white children by pursuing initiatives they see as critical race theory in disguise.
In 2021, the Ohio State Board of Education repealed an anti-racism and fairness resolution that was also passed after Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020. The resolution was replaced by a statement promoting academic excellence without regard to “race, ethnicity or creed.”
Racial issues remain particularly sensitive in the St. Louis area nine years after a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown during a street fight. Officer Darren Wilson was not charged and the shooting sparked months of often violent protests, which became a catalyst for the national Black Lives Matter movement.
Repealing the Francis Howell resolution “sets a precedent for things to come,” warned St. Charles County NAACP President Zebrina Looney.
“I think this is just the beginning of what this new board plans to do,” said Looney.
