Olympia School District, which serves roughly 10,000 students in the capital city of Washington state, has adopted a proclamation encouraging the incorporation of Black Lives Matter’s “13 Guiding Principles” and lesson plans into the classroom, according to a tip received through Young America’s Foundation’s Campus Bias Tip Line.
The superintendent and board of the district released the proclamation this afternoon, ahead of “Black Lives Matter at School Week,” which begins Monday.
“Our Black students, families and staff have experienced the deeply institutionalized and structural racism that exists in our schools and society, through microaggressions, pervasive bias, explicit racist language, actions and discriminatory and disparate treatment,” the district claims.
“The Board calls on all district staff to teach with the resources, and engage in professional learning, grounded in the 13 Guiding Principles of Black Lives Matter at School. The Board encourages educators, students, families, and staff to incorporate the 13 Guiding Principles of Black Lives Matter at School into their discussions about race and privilege all year long by teaching Black Lives Matter lessons aligned with Washington State Learning Standards,” the document states.
Among BLM’s “13 Guiding Principles” are “restorative justice,” “transgender affirming,” and “queer affirming.”
One of the lesson plans that Olympia teachers are encouraged to use claims that “we want to uplift trans people, especially black trans women who often experience violence.”
The definitions page of the lesson plan states that “some systems, like schools and jails, have white supremacy built into them because white people have had so much power for so long.” It also promotes the Left’s gender ideology, stating, “gender is how you feel – your sense that you are a girl, boy, both, or neither. There are many different genders.”
A “Principles Activity Book” that’s also provided as a resource for teachers to use in their classrooms pushes dozens of other leftist talking points on students, such as that Michael Brown was a victim of police brutality, and that it’s next to impossible for black people to succeed in the United States.
Instead of enforcing the Left’s victimhood narrative on impressionable young children, educators should encourage their students by empowering them to achieve success through true, meaningful education and encouragement.
“Critical Race Theory is a destructive philosophy rooted in Marxism, that promotes hyper-racism and pushes identity politics,” Tawny Kilpper, Young America’s Foundation’s middle school programs director, told the New Guard. “Diversity/Equity/Inclusion initiatives foster a victim mentality, undermine individual merit, and limit students’ sense of agency and self-reliance.”
Fortunately, there’s an alternative for students who find themselves subject to leftist indoctrination disguised as “education”: YAF’s high school student conferences and middle school expeditions offer students lessons of truth that instill hope and give them reason to work hard to shape their future.
