A South Carolina school district is paying nearly half a million dollars to a Left-leaning education company for three years of services, according to documents obtained by Parents Defending Education and shared exclusively with The Daily Wire.
The Beaufort County School District, located in a red-leaning area on the southern tip of South Carolina, is paying $491,460 to Panorama Education, according to contracts obtained by Parents Defending Education. The contracts are designated in part to promote social emotional learning (SEL) and equity, concepts that have been used to introduce woke politics into education.
The school district negotiated three contracts with Panorama for a variety of services. One, worth $406,110 was for “student surveys,” “teacher/staff surveys,” “family surveys,” “community surveys,” “access to Panorama’s Playbook and library of SEL intervention strategies,” and a “Professional Learning Package.”
This contract was later amended in August 2023 for additional services and payment of $30,100.
“We don’t know what exactly the school district paid for but the student, parent and community surveys we mostly see from Panorama include intrusive and arguably inappropriate questions about sexual orientation, gender identity, race and ethnicity,” Erika Sanzi, the director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, told The Daily Wire in a statement.
“This contract includes a handwritten notation that the funds being used were a set aside of federal dollars for students with disabilities that had to be spent by the end of June 2021. One wonders what measurable improvements can be observed after this expenditure of nearly half a million dollars,” Sanzi added.
Editor’s Note: Panorama has provided the following comment in reply to this article: “As strong believers in transparency and parental involvement, Panorama notes that the Beaufort County School District’s surveys are on the district’s website here and the surveys linked do not contain a single question about sexual orientation, gender identity, race, or ethnicity. As always, local school districts—not Panorama—decide what questions to ask and what to do with the data from the surveys.”
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Another contract worth $55,250 — designated for social emotional learning and promoting equity — was from July 2020 to July 2021.
The purpose of this contract was access to “Social-emotional learning Measures,” “Equity & Inclusion Measures,” “Distance Learning & Wellbeing Measures,” and “four customizable, virtual workshops focused on increasing staff’s knowledge and capacity of action planning with SEL data, implementing interventions, and promoting equity across Beaufort County School District.”
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Panorama was co-founded by Alexander Tanner, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s son-in-law, and has been criticized for running workshops promoting articles equating Trump supporters to the KKK and asking students questions about whether or not they are “gender fluid.” The company has also faced criticism for reportedly conducting SEL trainings on systemic oppression, white supremacy, unconscious bias, and intersectionality.
A previous Daily Wire investigation found that Panorama has earned lucrative contracts with many of the nation’s largest school districts, raising red flags for parents and advocates.
The Daily Wire reached out to the Beaufort County School District for comment.