Part 1: A Tale of Two Districts
Loudoun County, VA - The Process for Implementing Racial Ideology
This is going to be a three part story of two school districts on their Critical Race Theory/Antiracist/Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity journeys. This first part will focus on Loudoun County, Virginia. The Loudoun County story stands as a test case for the country. It eventually ended in the election of an underdog candidate for Governor; Glenn Youngkin, who shifted gears to focus on parental rights late in his campaign.
The most notable news you have probably heard from Loudoun County had to do with a boy who was gender fluid using the girl’s restroom. This was allowed by the school policy (students can use the restroom of the gender they identified with) and ended with a boy raping a girl. This story precedes that.
This article, written by Luke Rosiak, the investigative reporter for the Daily Wire that broke the rape story, and quite likely shifted the gubernatorial election, outlines the story. However, because the Daily Wire is unabashedly conservative and therefore completely dismissed by some readers, I decided I’d “do the work” myself to show the story. It began in February of 2019 when an elementary school decided to do a “runaway slave” exercise in gym class. Third, fourth and fifth graders were put through an obstacle course to represent the underground railroad.
Here’s where the story really begins. Upon receiving complaints, the principal announced they would form an “Equity and Culturally Responsive Team”, similar to say, a “diversity, inclusion, and equity committee”. Loudoun County Schools even had a local organization called the Loudoun Freedom Center that “provided expertise in curriculum review and participated in projects at schools” (read: supplemental curriculum).
Why did the Loudoun County school think the underground railroad exercise was appropriate in the first place? How did the Loudoun County school come upon this supplemental curriculum to put elementary school students through? There are three key figures involved in the answer to this question.
Near the bottom of Anthony Galloway’s Linkedin biography you can see that he “led hundreds of students through experiences []such as the Underground Railroad program”. Anthony Galloway also co-authored a chapter in a book authored by Glenn E. Singleton entitled “More Courageous Conversations About Race”, which I will discuss shortly.
In response to the Underground Railroad incident that Anthony Galloway was a large proponent of, the Superintendent of Loudoun County Schools announced that they had hired a national consulting firm to assess the racial well-being of Loudoun County Schools. The firm they hired, was called The Equity Collaborative who put together a report on the situtation at the Loudoun County Schools. At the Equity Collaborative, Jaime Almanzan is a “facilitator, curriculum director, and leadership coach”. His bio on the Equity Collaborative page also credits him with having held the position of Director of Learning and Teaching at a firm called Pacific Education Group.
Depending on the source, Loudoun County Schools contracted the Equity Collaborative for work totaling approximately $422,000 (second source, third source).
Jamie Almazan
In the third source above, you can pull up the documents where Jamie Almanzan’s signature is on the contracts with Loudoun County Schools. He holds the title of facilitator, teacher and curriculum director at The Equity Collaborative. But before that, he worked at the Pacific Educational Group as the Director of Learning and Teaching.
Here you can see the webpage for Pacific Educational Group. Above is a link to their site. The founder and CEO, Glenn E. Singleton, is an interesting part of this story. He is the author of the book “Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools, Second Edition” and “More Courageous Conversations About Race”. In his books, Singleton touches on Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, praises the Critical Race Theorist Richard Delgado, and of the problems with “whiteness”. Whether you want to call it CRT or through the lens of CRT, Singleton’s writing is in that realm.
Remember Anthony Galloway from above, at the beginning of our story? Here’s the last paragraph of his Linkedin profile:
Did you notice it? “Anthony, along with Dr. Patrick Duffy, co-authored a chapter in the book, “More Courageous Conversations About Race” (Singleton, 2012)”. Here’s an excerpt from that chapter:
In these excerpts, you can see Anthony Galloway describing his work, using the Underground Railroad exercise, along with Dr. Patrick Duffy, as well as an “intense nighttime experience”, where children are taken to a field, shackled, and chased by high school students. Where you see PEG above, that is the abbreviation of Pacific Education Group, Singleton’s firm. Galloway is characterizing his underground railroad exercise as a successful part of his work in the book.
So, just to recap our story: Anthony Galloway is a practitioner and advocate of the underground railroad exercise. A Loudoun County Elementary School used the underground railroad exercise in a gym class. This sparked a controversy and charges of racism. In response, Loudoun County Schools contracted, to the tune of over $400,000, The Equity Collaborative, to “fix” their supposed racism problem. The curriculum developer that signed the contract on behalf of The Equity Collaborative, previously worked for Pacific Education Group, Glenn Singleton’s organization, as director of teaching and learning. Glenn Singleton’s book, More Courageous Conversations About Race, had a chapter in it written by Anthony Galloway, in which he writes of his successes with exercises such as the underground railroad exercise.
In short, Loudoun County Schools paid six figures to learn how to solve their racism issue through a consulting firm connected to the very people who created the racist incident in the school to begin with. Two years later, having further implemented racial and gender ideology into their district curriculum and policies, the rape happened. It was covered up by the school district, and the school board, and led to a national controversy.
In part two, we will move on to Grand Haven Public Schools and explore the connections. Where in this story, or “process” is GHAPS?