2nd Graders required to have “explicit conversations about race,” will learn to identify “white culture”

According to the 2020-2021 school improvement plan, all students at Cherry Crest Elementary School in the Bellevue School District will “have explicit conversations about race, equity, and access.” They will “identify culture and begin to recognize and identify white culture through storytelling, sharing, and conversation.”

Here are a few screenshots from the plan—it can be viewed in its entirety here.

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you. You did just read that a group of 4th and 5th graders will be tasked with the “implementation of school-wide learning and strategies for being anti-racist.” It is unclear whether or not students have been made aware that antiracism requires discrimination based on race and other immutable traits.

The school explicitly states that it plans to “center race” and to force students “to engage in conversations about identity, race and culture throughout the year.”

If we are reading this correctly, 2nd graders will be trained to “recognize and identify white culture through storytelling, sharing and conversation.” They will also participate in bimonthly assemblies that include a focus on “self-identity.”

Nowhere in this document are definitions of terms provided for the following:

White culture

Antiracism

Equity

To read more about the Bellevue School District’s equity program, including its Director of Equity and Strategic Engagement, click here.