Others urged the state to limit eligibility to those who interact directly with the educators they might complain about - criteria that the department went with in its enforcement rules.īut Ragan, the House bill’s sponsor, contends the department missed the mark on complaint eligibility. “Never mind that I am speaking on behalf of hundreds of parents of currently enrolled students! And what about grandparents? How many grandparents are in this group in the defense of their grandchildren?” “Under this rule, our current complaint gets tossed out again (because) I’m not a parent of a currently enrolled student,” she wrote. She asked the state to widen eligibility to file a complaint under the new law. Steenman was also among hundreds of Tennesseans who wrote the department in 2021 about its pending rules. State rules were set after lengthy public comment process Robin Steenman, chair of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, alleged the literacy curriculum “Wit and Wisdom,” used by Williamson County Schools in 2020-21, has a “heavily biased agenda” that makes children “hate their country, each other and/or themselves.”īlackley said the department was only authorized to investigate claims beginning with the 2021-22 school year and encouraged Steenman to work with Williamson County Schools to resolve her concerns. The department also declined to investigate a complaint from Williamson County, south of Nashville, filed soon after the law was enacted. Because the law does not apply to private schools, the department found that the parent did not have standing to file an appeal under the law. The second was from the parent of a student enrolled in a private school in Davidson County.
The state denied the appeal based on the results of its investigation, Blackley said. One was filed by a Blount County parent over the book “Dragonwings,” a novel told from the perspective of a Chinese immigrant boy in the early 20th century. Since the rules went into effect in late 2021, the department has received two appeals of local decisions, according to spokesman Brian Blackley. Those rules also set who is eligible to file a complaint.
Change clocks 2021 how to#
Tennessee was among the first states to enact a prohibited concepts law amid national fury from conservatives about critical race theory, an academic framework that’s sometimes studied in higher education to examine how policies and laws may perpetuate systemic racism.Īfter reviewing more than 900 public comments about the new law, the state education department developed enforcement rules for everything from how to file and investigate a complaint to how to appeal a decision and what penalties that teachers and districts could face if found in violation of the law. Few appeals filed, no penalties levied so far The legislation is the latest effort by Tennessee conservatives to tamp down on classroom discussions that veer into ideas like systemic racism, sexism, and gender identity, even as the law has generated few formal complaints thus far.Ĭritics say it’s another attempt to weaponize public education in the current political climate by using charged words such as “indoctrination” to stoke parents’ fears and inflame disagreements about which classroom discussions are appropriate and which ones cross the line. “And it’s going to have another chilling effect on what teachers can teach and how they teach it.” “This will place an even greater burden on district personnel to have to chase down complaints,” said Gini Pupo-Walker, state director for the Education Trust in Tennessee. However, the law’s detractors say the change would make a dangerous policy even more dangerous.
“These people are taxpayers who are footing the bill for schools,” he said, “so they should have the right to file a complaint.” Ragan says investigations should weed out unfounded claims and that he’s more concerned about “taxation without representation.” The organization, with chapters in seven Tennessee counties, has channeled the frustrations of conservative mothers to target issues like mask mandates and curricula that touch on LGBTQ rights, race, and discrimination. The proposed change, which observers have dubbed “Prohibited Concepts 2.0,” could open the door to conservative groups like Moms for Liberty to flood their local school boards with complaints about instruction, books, or materials they believe violate the law, even if they do not have direct contact with the teacher or school in question.
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