FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — Fairfax County Public Schools is analyzing the framework for anti-racism and anti-bias education for its district to use during the school year.
Part of that framework is to review the current FCPS curriculum, review professional development actions and discuss the need for anti-racism and anti-bias policy, according to FCPS meeting documents.
FCPS school board members got a deeper look into the work being done to establish those goals this week during a work session for its anti-racism and anti-bias curriculum.
“I know often the public, and we all might be sitting here thinking, how do we know that there is a need for anti-bias and anti-hate curriculum. And I think this statement says at all, we must listen to and have faith in the stories of our school community,” Leona Smith-Vance, Director of Equity and Family Engagement at FCPS said during Tuesday’s FCPS school board work session.
According to the documents shown to board members, FCPS had added new social studies curriculum while auditing others that looked to engage students on these topics.
“We identified implicit bias in a significant portion of our curriculum resources in our central repository and we’re removing over a third of those resources as a result of that audit conducted by a diverse team of teachers,” Colleen Eddy, the FCPS Coordinator for K-12 Social Studies said.
Sujatha Hampton, Education Chair for the Fairfax County NAACP, said she’s pleased with the moves the district is making to create anti-racist social studies curriculum.
“Social Studies is the most, I don't want to say it's the most egregious but it's the most in your face that's where you're learning about the history,” Hampton said. “There’s a sort of feeling that with children you should go gently with that information, but perhaps if we didn't go gently with that information and we really did try to be just truthful about that information in age appropriate ways from the time children enter school, then they could get a better sense of what the truth is.”
The district also has laid out the next steps for its social studies curriculum, including systemwide professional development and adopting new high school electives for African American studies.
According to a Fairfax County Youth Survey, racism still exists in its schools. The survey found nearly half, 46.7%, of students reported they had something bad said to them about their race or culture.
Hampton said she wasn’t surprised by those numbers.
“I have Black children so no doesn't surprise me at all. Not even a little bit,” Hampton said. “I'm a graduate of Fairfax County Public Schools so I mean, I know.”
Hampton said schools were never designed to be operated for equity and said schools continue to be segregated in many ways.
“We have white areas of this county. We have brown areas of this county. And your schools will reflect that. The boundaries have very often been drawn to allow that to perpetuate, and also in certain schools so it's not necessarily magisterial districts,” Hampton said.
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Although Hampton said she is pleased by the anti-racism work the district has done in terms of social studies, she said there are still disappointing decisions the district is making when it comes to equity.
“I am extremely disappointed to see their (FCPS) hiring numbers that they hired 32 fewer black teachers than in years past,” Hampton said.
As part of the district’s plan, according to district documents, there also target dates set for division-wide professional development and equity and cultural responsiveness.
The district has a Fall 2020 target date to discuss bias, racism, and hate with athletic coaches as well as continued plans to address racism and hate.
There are also plans outlined for a student equity ambassador program and student clubs focused on peace and inclusion.
According to a past FCPS release, the state social studies curriculum is currently under review by the Governor’s Commission on African American History education and is due for revision in 2022.
