No CRT in Coweta Schools

(May 5, 2022)  Do Coweta County schools teach, or otherwise adhere to, “Critical Race Theory”?

No.  Our district employs the Georgia Standards of Excellence in our classrooms, which do not incorporate any such approach. Neither state curriculum nor locally-approved courses, or programs within our schools, integrate Critical Race Theory or similar viewpoints within our curriculum.

Similarly, the State Board of Education has approved a resolution opposing such concepts.  In 2022, the Georgia General Assembly debated and passed HB 1084, also known as the Divisive Concepts bill.  Governor Kemp has signed HB 1084 into law.  The law aims to identify and prohibit political viewpoints and concepts that should not be used in classrooms, including Critical Race theory, while also identifying protections for student and teacher speech and academic freedom.  The approach within the new state law does not appear to contradict Coweta’s traditional educational approach, or our current policies or practices. 

Our schools and school system do not teach Critical Race Theory or any similar principle, under that name or any other name, nor do they incorporate such approaches into curriculum or school operations generally.  Coweta County School Board members have spoken on record numerous times that CRT and similar divisive concepts are not approved or employed as curriculum in Coweta Schools.  

The Coweta County School System understands that we live in a politically divided age.  Despite that, our approach to classroom instruction remains traditional.  We do not promote politicized content in classrooms.   We focus on developing analytical and creative thinking in our students, on providing high-quality educational content and rigorous, engaging, and relevant work for all students, and on working to ensure student success in school and beyond graduation.

(May 5, 2022) What is Social and Emotional Learning in Coweta Schools, and is it a euphemism (or vehicle) for Critical Race Theory or similar divisive concepts?

No.    In Coweta County, Social and Emotional Learning is no different than the character education that our schools have incorporated for decades.  It can be defined as the process through which students develop knowledge and use skills in order to create and maintain healthy relationships, manage emotions, understand and empathize with others, establish a positive identity, set and achieve goals, make good decisions, and generally develop self-awareness, self-control, personal responsibility, and interpersonal skills that are vital for school, work, and life success.  We address bullying through our SEL approach by teaching conflict resolution, and helping students identify their feelings and motivations.  It is the basis of various ”character words of the day,” and “making choices” materials that parents see in their children’s elementary or middle schools.

All Coweta schools in Grades K-8 have been implementing SEL lessons as part of the curriculum since January 2020.  Each of these schools provided opportunities for review of the approach, and solicited parent and teacher input prior to implementation.  Parents can see more about our local Character Education curriculum in Board Policy IDAG and Board Policy IDAG-R.  To address this concern more directly, Social and Emotional Learning is not a “secret” way to promote Critical Race Theory or other such concepts in our schools.  

(May 10, 2022)  Do the social media posts below, showing a screenshot from an “Anti-Racism” lecture and another showing screenshots from a “Look Deeper: Race” course, show online courses used in Coweta County classrooms through its Edgenuity digital platform? 

(May 10, 2022)  Do the social media posts above, showing a screenshot from an “Anti-Racism” lecture and another showing screenshots from a “Look Deeper: Race” course, show online courses used in Coweta County classrooms through the Edgenuity digital platform?

No.   These are screenshots from online courses which are not used by the Coweta County School System or its schools, and have not been assigned to Coweta students.  They have appeared on social media posts and been paired with separate cowetaschools.net urls or separate screenshots of Coweta schools webpages to suggest that these courses have been approved or endorsed by Coweta schools.  They haven’t been.

Coweta County schools do use Edgenuity, which is a managed platform for online school courses.  Deliberately-selected and locally-customized Edgenuity core academic classes are available in middle and high schools for online credit repair (class make-up for credit), and Coweta Schools Online student coursework.  Individual components can be assigned for credit recovery in classes.  Students can only take coursework they have been specifically assigned from this platform, and can’t randomly access content.

Our school system can’t speak to the content of these specific courses above, because we are not familiar with them, nor are we sure where these pages come from. Edgenuity does provide a wide variety of online coursework for school systems across the nation.  As such, there are materials offered that do not fit into Coweta’s approach, and will not be selected for use in our schools.  To offer an analogy, there are many books available through Amazon, but you have to buy individual books to read them, or through Audible, though you have to subscribe and download books to listen to them.  Buying a book from these sources does not mean you would buy and read all of their books, or want to.

The courses shown in these posts are not available from the menu of courses on Coweta’s Edgenuity platform, and have not been assigned to any class or student in our system, and are not a part of our school system’s curriculum.

One page is shown as being accessed by “Test Student,” but we can’t find a record of a course like this accessed through that name (or any other) on our Edgenuity system.  The course "Look Deeper: Race" has not been purchased or provisioned into any of the Coweta County School System accounts.  No staff or students have had access to the course.  A screenshot of yet a different course appears to be a teacher demo but, again, we are not sure where the shot came from.  The courses are not part of our Edgenuity catalog or contract.  East Coweta High, Winston Dowdell Academy and Maggie Brown did not assign any of these segments to students or classes, nor have these or other schools received calls from concerned parents regarding these materials.   As always, parents are encouraged to call their child’s teacher or principal if they have such concerns.

One additional note - social media can be a wonderful thing, but it can also be used deceptively.  It is one thing to be criticized for doing something controversial, or asked to account for something that went wrong despite your intentions.  It is quite another to be accused of something that you didn’t do and had no intention of doing.  In this case, these social media posts appear to be a deceptive attempt to embroil the school system in a controversy over something it didn’t do.