O’FALLON, Mo — The Francis Howell School Board met tonight amid ongoing controversy over its actions surrounding black history and literature electives. There was no vote tonight on those electives. but there were plenty of fireworks.
A lot of parents, students and teachers are still upset. Those upset people that are here tonight say they want the board to leave the curriculum alone.
Parents, students, and teachers are still fired up in the Francis Howell school district. A crowd showed up Thursday at the district’s school board meeting to let them know… they still aren’t happy about the board making changes to black history and literature classes.
It all started a couple months ago, when the board came out and said they wanted to make some changes to the courses, leading some to believe they were getting rid of them altogether.
As it turns out, the board wants to stop teaching ‘social justice standards’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center in those elective classes.
Francis Howell North parent Amy Easterling calls the move – unnecessary.
“These are elective classes. If you don’t like what’s in the class, don’t have your child take it,” said Amy Easterling, a Francis Howell parent. “They had to scramble to rewrite these courses so that our board majority could get a win with their ultra-conservative supporters. It’s absolutely a waste of time and it’s appalling.”
Not everyone was critical of the board. But most who showed up Thursday called this a board over-reach.
“For the people who disagree with these kinds of courses, I’m sorry, but we need to go forward in history and teach them all American history,” said Grayson Jones, a Francis Howell alum.
The board will actually vote on these proposed changes at their meeting on March 21st.
