Folsom Cordova Unified School District hosts racial affinity groups for parents

The Folsom Cordova Unified School District has a document online titled “Transformative Social Emotional Learning and Equity Action Plan” that was created for the 2021-2022 school year. The document explains that “through an intentional, equitable, and culturally responsive focus on social, emotional, and academic learning, Folsom Cordova Unified School District (FCUSD) schools will create culturally literate and engaging learning environments.”

This will be accomplished in part by hosting three “parent summits incorporating racial affinity groups to collectively share educational experiences and advocacy.” Affinity groups are groups that segregate people based on their characteristics, such as race and ethnicity.

The school district’s website has a PowerPoint presentation titled “Parent Summit: Advancing Educational Equity” that is dated November 2, 2021. The district appeared to have given the presentation to parents. The presentation tells parents to “experience discomfort” and acknowledge that “discomfort is inevitable, especially, in dialogue about race.” A large section of the presentation is based on affinity groups. This section of the presentation tries to explain that “equity” is better than “equality.”

The presentation also explains that racial affinity groups are needed “to advance racial equity.” The presentation then states how affinity groups can help “white people”: “For white people, this provides time and space to work explicitly and intentionally on understanding white culture and white privilege and to increase one’s critical analysis around these concepts.” The presentation then appears to have parents separate themselves into affinity groups by telling participants to “select your affinity breakout rooms.”

The school district also has a document online titled “ESSER III Expenditure Plan” to explain how COVID relief funding from the federal government will be spent. The school district received $17,285,343 in “ESSER III funds.” In order to determine how these funds would be spent, the district had “Parent Summits” that “were held virtually with a focus on affinity groups (Hispanic, Black, Special Education, and Asian and Pacific Islander) from underserved communities.”