Deanna Rolffs - Training GH Teachers
Grand Haven Teachers are Being Trained in Critical Race Theory
Teachers in Grand Haven are learning all about oppression, patriarchy, racial inequity, power and privilege through their professional development training hosted by Grand Haven Area Public Schools and planned by district leadership and teacher leaders. This package of buzz words boils down to Critical Race Theory 101. Professional development training on December 8, 2021 featured Deanna Rolffs. Deanna was there to train our teachers. Her bible is Robin DiAngleo’s book White Fragility. Deanna Rolffs is scheduled to provide more training to GHAPS teachers on March 17, 2022. She teaches diversity, equity and inclusion, uses she/her pronouns, is anti-white male, and anti-capitalism.
According to the GHAPS Director of Instructional Services, Mary Jane Evink, teachers requested this training to help them better communicate with students. The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee planned the training, Mary Jane Evink suggested Deanna Rolffs lead the training, and the decision was supported by the GHAPS Superintendent Scott Grimes and Assistant Superintendent Jason Reinecke.
The training lead by Deanna Rolffs was called Brave and Courageous Conversations. The website Remote DEI Toolkit - Courageous Conversations explains more about the philosophy of Brave and Courageous Conversations. Here is a quote from the website.
White supremacy culture (Dismantling Racism Works) is already deeply seated in professional spaces, but certain characteristics can be exacerbated in remote environments. Without physical proximity, managers can overemphasize productivity, focusing on quantity over quality. Teams may value working independently versus collaboratively, leading to a competitive culture and individualism. Leaders might reward those to whom they are more strongly connected, hoarding power within the organization. Such instances of white supremacy culture in remote spaces benefit those with more power – whether based on one’s role, identity, or proximity to whiteness.
Deanna Rolffs was featured in the video “Unlearning and Relearning: My Messy Antiracism Journey” with Deanna Rolffs, February 7, 2021
The video was recorded at Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids and opens with a musician in a mask playing The Entertainer on the organ. Then the “pastor” speaks saying, I am the Reverend Christopher Roe. I use He/Him pronouns”. Deanna’s speech begins around the 12 minute mark.
Deanna is also featured in the video Executive Leader Cohorts for Women, Design Group International, Deanna Rolffs, Kristin Evenson and Dawn Yoder Graber describe the cohorts they created for women executive leaders.
In this video, three women and an interviewer discuss challenges for working women. Here are some quotes from Deanna Rolffs.
At the 14:30 minute mark she was asked who hires you?
“They are aspiring to continue to move into bravery, change oriented, and are deeply dedicated to disrupting inequity and figuring out what anti oppression looks like for them. So for example, in the networks that I facilitate… we do a lot of work to unpack inequity and better understand how our systems and organizations are rooted in oppression, or the patriarchy, or are embedded, anti-blackness is showing up or LGBTQ+ oppression is showing up, so they are all leaders that really want to push into that.”
At the 19:40 minute mark Deanna Rolffs describes herself.
“I think I’d start out by describing myself as an intersectional feminist…..a prism for seeing ways in which various forms of inequality operate together and exacerbate each other….friends and colleges of color have taught me that anti-racism and anti-oppression, so including you know, gender bias and the patriarchy, those efforts need to be the labor of those that are the most privileged or in the center of power, so because a lot of my work is with white women around race, typically, black folks, and most people of color are asked to not only share their trauma and inform us about racial inequity, but are expected to do the labor to fix it. So when people of color speak the truth about racial inequity with white folks or whiteness as a social construct respond, with all these “that’s not really a thing”, or “I’m sure they didn’t really mean to do that.”……….So using my privilege and power that doesn’t make it about me……”
At the 37:00 minute mark Deanna Rolffs continues
“I think the impetus for engaging in coaching or consulting support, in my three years of experience, varies significantly, but they’re all wanting to support in their change and in their transformation so increasingly in my engagements with clients are longer and more in depth learning together about inequity or leadership development broadly, seeing how inequity shows up in us, and shifting power dynamic, unpacking savior mentality, and really learning about power and oppression, mindsets or equity traps…….”
In addition to the two videos, Deanna Rolffs’ has a blog where you can read more about her philosophy and experiences.
This is what our teachers in Grand Haven are being taught to believe and pass onto our children.
If this concerns you please email the GHAPS school board members, Superintendent Scott Grimes, and Director of Instructional Services Mary Jane Evink and/or attend the next school board meeting scheduled for February 7, 2022 at 7:00 pm at Central High School to express your concerns.
Our ancestors were not oppressors. Our children are not oppressors, and white Christian straight men and women are not oppressors. Most Americans are a blend of ethnicities. We have varying amounts of African, Northern European, Dutch, English, Irish, and German, Southern European, Asian, Native American and Mexican in our blood. Some of our ancestors were oppressed, but many were freedom fighters and it’s a miracle they survived. We are freedom fighters. Please join the fight.