West Nova News

The Loudoun County Public School (LCPS) Equity Team met last month during a faculty meeting.

Distributed at the meeting included a two-page document titled "20 (Self-) Critical Things I Will Do to Be a More Equitable Educator" written by Paul C. Gorski for EdChange. The document outlines 20 suggestions such as learning to pronounce a student's name correctly and rejecting "the myth of color-blindness."

The Equity Team has been part of a controversial push by LCPS Superintendent Eric Williams. West Nova News previously reported that the school system had spent $422,500 on the critical race theory staff curriculum for two years — $314,000 in 2019 was for coaching and meetings with The Equity Collaborative. 

Of the taxpayer funds spent on critical race theory, $120,000 was spent on an eight-day assessment and $32,000 for a four-day plan and $10,000 for two days of work by Jamie Almanzán, the leader of The Equity Collaborative each month for a total of $90,000.

The goals of the critical race theory is to hire more teachers of color and fewer white teachers. It also requires that new teachers engage in on-board training sessions involving culturally responsive instruction and equity. 

Earlier this year, Williams wanted to punish teachers who publicly spoke out against the critical race theory. However, he eventually dropped that cause after a teacher’s union questioned his capacity to interfere with the teachers’ First Amendment rights.

In 2020 alone, The Equity Collaborative has billed the school system $100,000, West Nova News reported.

Currently, the school system is about 46% white, 23% Asian, 18% Hispanic, 8% Black and 6% multiracial, the news media reported.

“In CRT, racism is seen as an inherent part of American civilization, privileging White individuals over people of color in most areas of life, including education,” an Equity Collaborative study pack titled “Intro to Critical Race Theory” reads, West Nova News reported.

Williams was previously reported to have said that the district’s educators and staff would try to “steer the conversation away from race to focus on poverty,” when discussing critical race theory, according to the news media.

LCPS Equity Director Lottie Spurlock did not respond to a request for comment.