Documents show activists forced Loudoun County Public Schools into a critical race theory rabbit hole because they used a critical race theory exercise about the Underground Railroad.
In 2021, not a week goes by without Loudoun County, Virginia making the news as a result of its push to implement critical race theory in its schools. Parents are frustrated and looking for answers, while Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) remains largely silent as this affluent county outside of Washington, D.C. has become ground zero in the fight against critical race theory in schools.
The story of how this all happened seems relatively straightforward, but it is in fact a complicated story of gaslighting, big money contracts, and unfairly throwing teachers under the bus.
It All Started With a ‘Runaway Slave Game’
It all started in February 2019 when Loudoun County made national news after the president of the Loudoun County NAACP claimed that students at Madison Trust Elementary were instructed to pretend to be slaves during a gym class activity. This exercise was presented to the media as a “runaway slave game.”
The school was quick to issue an apology and then-Superintendent Eric Williams said the school system would take corrective action, which included hiring “[a]n outside expert [to] conduct an equity audit,” requiring all teachers to receive “cultural competence and implicit bias training,” and creating a new position related to “equity and cultural competence.”
LCPS immediately began taking action. In April 2019, it hired The Equity Collaborative, a consulting firm in California that specializes in critical race theory. LCPS paid that company $422,000 to conduct focus groups, coach and train teachers, and produce an “equity assessment.” That assessment was supposedly submitted to LCPS on June, 6, 2019. The report was titled: “Initial Report – Systemic Equity Assessment: A Picture of Racial Equity – Challenges and Opportunities in Loudoun County Public School District.”
On May 22, 2019, prior to the equity assessment release, the Loudoun NAACP filed a complaint with the Virginia attorney general alleging systemic racism at LCPS. On September 9, 2019, the Loudoun NAACP supplemented its complaint by submitting...
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