Prior Lake-Savage School District rescinds DEI resolution

It's long past time that Minnesota school boards started eliminating DEI's influence from our schools. Alpha News is reporting that "The Prior Lake-Savage school board rescinded a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) resolution during its meeting Monday night." Apparently, things got pretty contentious during the meeting. School board member Amy Bullyan asked "Does this resolution in and of itself serve the whole in a unifying way?" Alpha News is reporting "The resolution was passed in 2020 and addressed things like 'implicit bias's and 'anti-racism.'"

The resolution says "Racism and implicit bias manifest in myriad ways, including, but not limited to, hate speech, open hostility and bigotry, systematic and institutionalized practices and policies, microaggressions, color-blind ideology, willful ignorance, and unconscious bias in decision making, each of which have the effect of negatively impacting Black, Indigenous, and people of color and members of other marginalized groups." In other words, it means whatever the activists say it is. How convenient. In the words of the late, great Rush Limbaugh, this is just meaningless gobbledygook.

Parents aren't buying it

Supporters of the resolution argued that it is needed to ensure all students feel safe and supported and to build community trust. Those who opposed it said that it didn’t improve the achievement gap, which was one of its stated purposes, and that it actually caused more division in the community.

“The Equity and Inclusion Resolution is a document that has actually been used as the basis for retaliation against individuals in our community and our schools. Every individual is protected under the Minnesota Human Rights Act and therefore the resolution is not necessary and in fact is a document that serves to CAUSE division and discrimination not eliminate it,” parent Rachel Carlson said in an email to the school board shared with Alpha News.

In the end, the voice of sanity won:

It's questionable whether there's true racism and implicit bias. Thus far, I just hear talk

It's time to see whether there's legitimate academic improvement year-over-year. I'm not talking about grades improvement because those can be artificially inflated. I want to see improvement in math and reading proficiency. What are PL-S's schools doing to reach into the excellent category, not just barely achieving mediocrity.

I'm tired of schools deploying the latest untested teaching method. It's time to build upon time-tested methods that work.