The Redondo Beach school district has already begun the process of incorporating Critical Race Theory into the curriculum, with a focus on student activism.
Following the playbook that no child is too young to be exposed to this doctrine, 6th graders at Parras Middle School have been presented with an elective social justice/activism class which is clearly drawn from Critical Race Theory and is not a leadership class. Notice the references to bias, privilege and stereotypes.
It is disturbing to categorize an activism class as “leadership”. The Parras middle school course catalog may be found
here. This class is on page 13, text is below:
Leadership
Prerequisite: Grade 6
Length: Yearlong, application required
The course is intended for students who are interested in school leadership, while also working through current issues around social justice. Students will help organize school activities and programs, and engage in a curriculum rich in topics of social justice.
This new elective at Parras is designed to help you do just that—learning how to confidently respond to issues of social injustice by respectfully making your voice heard. This class will be organized into 3 distinct parts:
1. Understanding our personal identities as they relate to bias and privilege
2. Explore the concept of justice by learning to recognize stereotypes and biases while learning to relate to people as individuals in order to recognize which voices are being heard on campus and which voices are not being heard.
3. Finally developing a project to take action. Students interested in this class will: be passionate about creating change, be willing to discuss hard topics and ultimately be confident to use their voices to create meaningful change.
This is nearly the same course description used at Adams Middle School with the title: Social Justice for 7th/8th graders. See AMS course catalog
here with this course on page 12.
According to the school, this class is oversubscribed. However, from speaking with students, this was presented as a class about Student Body Leadership and planning parties and events.
Why would the school district change the name of this class?
How many other classes have misleading titles? Parents need to be attentive to the curriculum.
Every parent should insist that a class entitled Leadership be an actual leadership class as described to the students. There are many options, and an example of one can be found:
Here.