In December 2021, the New York Times published an op-ed about Randi Weingarten, the head of the largest public school teachers union in the United States, asking: “Can This Woman Save American Public Education?” Within hours the Times revised the online headline to read, “What Will It Take to Get Schools Back to Normal?” Then, it was switched to “We Desperately Need Schools to Get Back to Normal.”
But most parents realize that public schools aren’t getting back to normal anytime soon. In early 2022, after winter break ended, more than a million of the nation’s public-school children were locked out of their school buildings. Teachers in Chicago refused to go back to work. Detroit’s teachers did the same. Teachers in Oakland, Calif., and San Francisco threatened to strike. Many wondered what had happened to the $190 billion of federal funds for K-12 Covid mitigation funds allocated to keep schools open. As the problems in public schools increasingly come to light–from Covid restrictions to political indoctrination and teachers’ union interference–many parents are frustrated and looking at other options, including private schools.
At this inflection point in the education system, parents need accurate information about private school options. Private schools can contribute to education diversity, with options for parents to select the school that best meets their children’s individual needs or aligns with their family’s faith and values. Diving into the details of private schools and their associations, accreditors and outside consultants can pay dividends as parents search for solutions.
To help parents make wise decisions, Parents Defending Education has produced a report, “Private School 101: What Parents Need to Know to Be Educated Consumers,” with a lay of the land of private schools and a case study of one private school–Pembroke Hill School in Kansas City, Mo.–and how it went woke, with the help of “diversity, equity and inclusion” consultants.
Typically, private school application season includes January application deadlines and spring decisions. To make wise choices, parents need to educate themselves before they enroll in a school and then stay engaged after they decide.
Parents’ rights concerning their child’s private school can be limited by the school’s student enrollment agreement, a contract between the school and the parents. Agreements cover matters such as tuition and student handbook compliance and can include language giving the school the right to dismiss a student whose parents or guardians no longer have a “cooperative” relationship with the school, as one contract stipulates.
Parents’ voices are powerful when they band together, especially with grassroots and national organizations to help: pushing for school choice, transparency, accountability and excellence in education rather than social justice indoctrination. Sunshine is the best disinfectant; fixes are possible, and alternatives exist. Private schools will be a key piece of the path forward in the parent movement of 2022. And we hope we can help you along the way.
Resources
History of Private Schools
Private Schools: From Their Origins through Today The first school in the modern-day United States predated the Pilgrims and was a private, independent school in a land not even a…
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Private School Associations, Accreditors and Oversight
Although private schools are independent, school associations, as well as accreditors, consultants and state and federal government education agencies, can influence private schools. The various levers of influence include: 1.
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National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)
Modern day indoctrination in private schools The National Association of Independent Schools, a nonprofit based in Washington D.C. representing over 1,600 private schools, offers a window…
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Private School Rights and Enrollment Contracts
Because private schools are considered private actors, they have broad discretion over their mission, vision and operations. Private school enrollment is a contractual relationship between a school and a family.
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Speaking Up at Private Schools
Since private school education is a choice, parents need transparency to make an informed decision before choosing their child’s private school and in order to stay informed along the way.
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Documenting Your Issue
Public and Private School Resource: If you’re going to raise concerns about something going on at a school — private or public — you have to document, document, document. What…
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Writing an Opt-Out Letter to Your Child’s Private School
Opting out means formally letting your child’s school know what you don’t want your child to participate in while they are at school. Sex ed/health instruction is the most common subject that…
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Private School Admission Guide: What you need to know
Time to apply for the 2023-24 school year! Kids are back in school! That means private school application season for NEXT YEAR is already in full swing. K-12 private school…
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Incidents
Rocky Hill Country Day School offers affinity groups for students; asks students for their pronouns, race, and sexuality before joining affinity groups
The Rocky Hill Country Day School is a private school located in Rhode Island. The school’s website has a page promoting an “Office of Equity +…
Incidents
Moses Brown School’s promotes PRIDE month; students in Lower School’s “Rainbow Families affinity group” organize a PRIDE parade on campus
Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island, is promoting a pride parade for lower school students in a “Rainbow Families” affinity group on June 5. The…
Incidents
The Kinkaid School promotes affinity groups for students, including a group called the “White Ally Affinity Group”
The Kinkaid School in Houston is a private school that promotes affinity groups for students. Affinity groups are groups of people segregated by their characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, and…
Incidents
Concord Academy promotes affinity groups to students; specifically promotes “Trans Affinity Group” for students who identify as “transgender or nonbinary”
Concord Academy is a private high school in Massachusetts. The school’s website has a page labeled as “Clubs and Affinity Groups.” The groups that are specifically…
Incidents
The Episcopal School of Dallas promotes race-based affinity groups for students
The Episcopal School of Dallas has a page online promoting “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” The page states that “the Board, in partnership with the school’s…
Incidents
Phillips Exeter Academy courses include ‘Mathematics of Social Justice’ and ‘Science Health and Race in America’
Phillips Exeter Academy, a private school in New Hampshire, offers a math course and a science course that focus on identifying discrimination and systematic bias and the exploration of…
Incidents
Francis W. Parker School promotes ‘Students of Color Affinity Groups’ for kindergarteners
Francis W. Parker School, a private school in Chicago, promotes “Students of Color Affinity Groups (SOCA)” to students as young as kindergarten. According to the school’s website, SOCA…
Incidents
Moorestown Friends School goes all in on affinity groups, social justice clubs, and integrating DEI into the curriculum
Moorestown Friends School is a private Quaker school serving all grades in Moorestown, New Jersey that has pledged its commitment to DEI initiatives. For High School students, the school promotes…
Incidents
Taft School faculty acknowledge their “whiteness;” admissions group crafts “optimal platform to create the ideal student body”
The Taft School, an elite co-ed boarding and day high school in Watertown, Conn., offers an “affinity” group to faculty and staff…
Incidents
Sage Ridge School partners with equity consultant “Challenge Success” to replace academic rigor with student wellness
On May 17, 2022, Sage Ridge School, an independent school for grades 3 through 12 in Reno, Nevada, hosted an information…
Incidents
All-girls boarding Madeira School hosts queer author talk during “queer history” class
On Oct. 26, 2022 The Madeira School, an all-girls elite boarding and day high school in McLean, VA., hosted author and alumna Leslie Absher for…
Incidents
St. Mary’s Episcopal School promotes affinity groups for students on website
St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis promotes “affinity groups” for students on its website. Affinity groups are groups that segregate people based on their personal…
Incidents
The Advent School promotes affinity groups that segregate faculty and students by race; 2nd graders taught about picking their pronouns
The Advent School in Boston has a page online titled “Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging.” The school states on the page: “We define Social Justice as the…
Incidents
Roland Park Country School all-girls school summer reading, library, and book talks all based in DEI ideology
Roland Park Country School, an all-girls independent K-12 school founded in 1894 in the historic Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore, started…
Incidents
Harpeth Hall “gender diversity philosophy” linked to influence of outside consultant
On August 18, Harpeth Hall, an elite all-girls school for grades 5-12 in Nashville, said it would “pause” its new policy accepting applications from biological males who “identify” as…
Incidents
The Rivers School’s new “Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Individuals” policy mandates speech including parental electronic communication, and allows biological boys access to female restrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams
The Rivers School, an elite private school in Weston, Massachusetts serving grades 6 through 12, recently adopted a gender identity policy…
Incidents
Harpeth Hall community members call for resignations over all-girls Harpeth Hall’s gender policy and activism
On August 18, Harpeth Hall, an elite all-girls school for grades 5-12 in Nashville, said it would “pause” its new policy to accept applications from biological males who “identify” as…
Incidents
Concord Academy celebrates its centennial with a school-wide “critical social justice” makeover
“As Concord Academy nears its 100th birthday, now proudly inclusive of all genders, the school also marks half a century as a coed institution.”…
Incidents
The Advent School donates at least $25,000 to teaching conference that claims “all members of this society” participate in “racism and white supremacy”
The “2022 National Anti-Racism Teach-In” conference claims to be “a national anti-racist conference and global movement designed to identify, analyze, and challenge racism and white…
Incidents
Poly Prep Country Day School administers 62-page “DEIB Climate Survey” which garners parent outrage and a retraction
After administering 62-page “DEIB Climate Survey” to students in grades 5-12 which included questions about sexual identity/orientation, political affiliation, mental health, parent income, disability status, and personal beliefs about concepts…
Incidents
River Oaks Baptist School in Houston implements Critical Race Theory in elementary school after hiring San Francisco-based diversity consultant
Leanne Reynolds has held the position of “Head of School” at River Oaks Baptist School in Houston since 2012, according to her LinkedIn account. However,…
Incidents
River Oaks Baptist School lists “self-identification as a person of color” as a requirement for an open position; has preschool students compare their skin to the color of food
In 2020, River Oaks Baptist School’s Head of School Leanne Reynolds wrote an article detailing the trials that the school and parents went through due to…
Incidents
Catholic Quincy Notre Dame High School adopts critical race theory-based Savvas “Culturally Responsive Learning (CRL) Initiative” “ESSER funding alligned” curriculum
In August of 2021, Quincy Notre Dame High School—a Catholic school under the direction of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois—began using…
Incidents
All-girl Catholic Carondelet High School stages GLSEN activist org “Day of Silence” to protest the “silencing” of “LGBTQIA+ voices”
On April 8, 2022, Carondelet High School, an elite all-girls Catholic high school in Contra Costa County, Calif., took an all-day “vow of silence” to “protest…
Incidents
Georgetown Day School teaches students about so-called “anti-LGBTQ” bills with lesson and school-wide art collage project
Georgetown Day School students “across the grade levels” spent class time “learning about” and “creating artwork” about what the school calls “anti-LGBTQ bills” passed recently in…
Incidents
Daily bulletin at Moses Brown School in Providence urges students to write letters during lunch in opposition to what school officials call a “Don’t Say Gay” bill; students are given “pronoun pins”
In the daily bulletin for upper school students on March 30th, 2022 known by students and families as the “Daily Information Board” or “DIB,” officials at Moses Brown, an…
Incidents
Georgetown Day School: “Anti-Racist Journey” includes race-based “affinity” groups, keynote speakers who are pioneers in critical race theory and “abolitionist teaching,” BLM week student activism, Pride Week student activism, and a reading list steeped in CRT
Georgetown Day School (GDS), an elite independent PK-12 private school in Washington, D.C., communicated their Critical Race Theory-based “anti-racist journey”…
Incidents
Administrators at The Westminster Schools “swept” student records in a 2020 “all hands on deck for Warnock and Ossoff” get out the vote effort, according a Facebook exchange posted by concerned parents
On Friday, March 18 a concerned parent group at The Westminster Schools, an elite Atlanta K-12 prep school, posted the following message to their “Wokeminster” Twitter account: “In 2020,…
Incidents
Milton Academy separates students as young as five into race-based ‘affinity groups’ after conducting online “climate” survey
Milton Academy, an elite day and boarding independent K-12 school founded in 1798 located on 130 acres in Milton, Mass., has instituted programs with “affinity groups” for students and…
Incidents
All-girl Catholic Carondelet High School hosts repeated celebrations of trans agenda
Carondelet High School’s new STEM “I-Center”, the Jean Hofmann Center for Innovation On Jan. 28, 2022, Carondelet High School’s “DEI Council” hosted a “Community During Community” cultural festival that included…
Incidents
The Westminster Schools in Atlanta uses its largest-in-the-nation endowment for $5 million ‘anti-racism’ pledge
The Westminster Schools has a 180-acre campus in the Buckhead community of Atlanta. In June 2020, The Westminster Schools, an elite Atlanta K-12 prep school, pledged $5 million from…
Incidents
Columbia Grammar & Prep teaches students how to be a ‘white ally’ and ‘support social justice movements’; requires ‘parent cooperation’ in contract
Columbia Grammar & Prep celebrates Black History Month: Was it an assembly or therapy?…
Incidents
The Collegiate School ‘Woke-Over’ connections to black affinity group, U.S. Capitol protests and Georgia politics
In January 2022, Collegiate School, an elite Manhattan all-boys prep school founded in 1628, announced changes to its motto, seal and mascot.
Incidents
Wheeler School in Providence, RI, excludes white students from meeting celebrity guest
Wheeler School is not new to sorting and separating students by race but this past week was the first time parents can remember students being excluded from hearing a guest…
Incidents
Pembroke Hill School Hires Consultants to Discuss White Supremacy and Anti-Racism
The Pembroke Hill School in Kansas City hired the consulting group Sophic Solutions to give a presentation on race to the staff in August 2020. Included in the presentation…
Incidents
The Allen-Stevenson School Separates Students Into Affinity Groups and Utilizes Pollyanna Racial Literacy Curriculum In Class
The Allen-Stevenson School, a private K-8 school for boys, features a “Community Life + Diversity” program that offers various race-based affinity groups for students, including “BOCAS: Boys of Color…
Incidents
Moses Brown (a Friends school) administers intersectionality survey during 8th grade math class; sends home book list that has some parents concerned; publishes 14-page DEI plan
Several parents from Moses Brown, an independent school in Providence, Rhode Island, reached out to Parents Defending Education with concerns about a survey administered to their 8th grade children during…
Incidents
The Wheeler School hosts a “Working Group for White Parents and Guardians” and recommends ‘Woke Kindergarten’ on its website
In April, the first “Antiracism Working Group for White Parents and Guardians” was held, initiated by several parents “to support Wheeler’s ongoing commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.” Other…
Incidents
The Brentwood School Sorts Students and Families by Race, Religious Ethnicity and Sexual Orientation
The Brentwood School, a private school in Los Angeles, hosts “dialogue and community building sessions” that are intentionally segregated. As of late January, 2021 this is what the calendar…
Incidents
Brentwood School 8th grade test injects opinion into test on current events
A recent test administered to an 8th grade class at the private Brentwood School in Los Angeles — where tuition for the 2021-22 school year is $46,550/year — asked…
Incidents
The Frisch School injects politics into student yearbook
The private Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey – where tuition for the 2021-22 school year is $26,450 – surprised families when the yearbook included a page to “black…
Incidents
Sandy Spring Friends School Blog Post Recommends “Summer Homework for White People”
On June 21, 2020, Sandy Spring Friends School posted a blog post titled, “Summer Homework for White People Wondering If They Should Be Doing Something.” The very first…
Incidents
The Mount Vernon School issued plan to introduce new initiatives steeped in critical race theory
In August 2020, Brett Jacobsen, chief executive officer and head of The Mount Vernon School, outside Atlanta, issued a letter to the school community, saying he…
Incidents
Columbus Academy refuses to share copies of its race-based curriculum with parents
Columbus Academy, a private school in Columbus Ohio with tuition between $26,000-31,000 per year, has introduced controversial curriculum around antiracism. The “Pro-CA” coalition sent a letter to the school…
Incidents
Loyola Academy H.S. assignment asks students to apologize for color of their skin
A private high school in the Chicago suburbs asked students a series of questions in an assignment including: How do you benefit from white privilege, and how…
Incidents
Moses Brown School unveils ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ plan with ‘concept of intersectionality;’ separates children by race.
On Oct. 5, 2020, Moses Brown School Assistant Head of Upper School Beth Lantz sent an email about “our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work,” beginning with an “introduction to…
Incidents
Investigations
Catholic League president questions National Association of Independent Schools’ “queer-inclusive curriculum”
As of April 5, 2022, NAIS President Donna Orem has not responded to Catholic League President William A. Donohue’s March 1, 2022 letter questioning the sexually explicit “queer-inclusive curriculum” promoted…
Incidents
How Pembroke Hill School Went Woke
Friday, June 5, 2020, was an eventful day in Kansas City, Mo. That day, officials at Pembroke Hill School–the most elite prep school in town and…
Case Studies
The Woke Gospel at St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, Connecticut
In late 2020, New York City’s Dalton School drew headlines after trainers from Pollyanna, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, led mandatory training that included “forcing a Jewish student to play a…
Case Studies
Philip McAdoo Diversity and Inclusion Consulting LLC
What is Philip McAdoo Diversity and Inclusion Consulting LLC? Philip McAdoo is an Atlanta-based “diversity, equity and inclusion” practitioner and self-described LGBTQ activist with an extensive…
Consultants
Sophic Solutions LLC
What is Sophic Solutions LLC? Based in Kansas City, Missouri, Sophic Solutions LLC says it is a “change management and consulting firm” offering “a broad and diverse range of training…
Consultants
Pollyanna Inc.
What is Pollyanna Inc.? Pollyanna Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. According to its website, Casper Caldarola established Pollyanna in 2015. She was a trustee…
Consultants
Glasgow Group
Rodney Glasgow is a diversity, equity and inclusion practitioner and activist and the founder of The Glasgow Group, a consulting organization with well documented ties…
Consultants
Love Educational Services LLC
What is Love Educational Services LLC? On Jan. 6, 2017, Bettina Love registered Love Educational Services, LLC, as a limited liability company, based in Atlanta, Georgia, with the Georgia…
Consultants
Muhammad, Gholnecsar | HILL Pedagogies LLC
Who is Gholnecsar Muhammad? Gholnecsar Muhammad describes herself on her Twitter account as a “Disruptor of Oppression.” An associate professor of language and literacy at Georgia State University, Muhammad, known…
Consultants
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