In part one, I laid out the Loudoun County, Virginia Schools’ process to radical racial and sexual ideology implementation. In part two, I showed the incidents (crises) that GHAPS have had and the reactive steps taken in response thus far. For part three, I will show how they dovetail and where GHAPS may be in the process.
First, let’s begin by recapping the timeline of events in Loudoun County, Virginia. In February of 2019, a teacher in a Loudoun County School used the “runaway slave” Underground Railroad exercise. Anthony Galloway is a proponent of and practitioner of this exercise. Anthony Galloway co-wrote a chapter in the book “More Courageous Conversations About Race”, authored by Glenn Singleton. After this incident, Loudoun County Schools contracted a national consulting firm, The Equity Collaborative. At the Equity Collaborative, Jamie Almanzan is listed as a “facilitator, curriculum director, and leadership coach”. Previous to this position, Almanzan held the title of “director of learning and teaching” at a firm called The Equity Collaborative. The founder and CEO of the Equity Collaborative, is Glenn Singleton.
Loudoun County had a teacher use an exercise that is touted by Anthony Galloway, cause a racial incident (crisis), then spent over $400,000 on a consulting firm to help “cure” them of their racial issues. Only problem, the consulting firm has ties to the same curriculum and proponents of the very exercise that caused Loudoun Schools’ racist incident.
Grand Haven has not completed the process yet, but let’s take a look at where they are. In 1996, a racist event happened in the community (not the school). The school responded with the creation of their first iteration of a Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) committee, titled Diversity Committee. Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance (LEDA) was formed at this time as well. By 2012, LEDA was ingrained within the school enough to lead a “parent forum” in response to a racial incident that happened within the school. For this incident, GHAPS was investigated by the Office of Civil Rights. As a result of this incident, so-called “antiracism” and CRT principles were embedded into the curriculum and student groups, with the help of LEDA and a school club called Calling All Colors.
By 2020, it was decided that GHAPS needed further training in so-called “antiracism” and CRT, to become more “race-conscious”. This is where Design Group International enters the picture. This process consulting firm was contracted for a year, from June 2021 to June 2022 for the price of $34,500. If you made it to the end of part two, you saw that Design Group International is sourcing for their training material, Glenn Singleton’s book, “Courageous Conversations About Race”. The phrase, “Creating a brave space to have courageous conversations” was a stated goal of professional development training, according to Mary Jane Evink, the curriculum director at GHAPS.
So, are the 1996 and 2012 incidents the end for GHAPS? Or is this just the beginning of the process? In Loudoun County Virginia, a teacher adopted the teachings of Singleton and Galloway and used the Underground Railroad exercise. This precipitated their racial incident that wound up costing the district over $400,000. With GHAPS teachers being trained by the same source material, is this just the beginning? What will the response be if a GHAPS teacher adopts lessons or exercises similar to the Underground Railroad exercise, or a similar exercise? They are being trained to hyper focus on race, embedding curriculum with so-called “antiracism”, (with the help and coordination of the Momentum Center’s Antiracism Task Force), as well as the tenets of CRT, as I showed in part two. Students, with Calling All Colors are learning this toxic material as well. With everyone hyper-focused on race and social justice rather than what’s inside each person and equal and fair justice, how long until another incident happens? Is that the hope, to further the process?
One little piece of information that wasn’t pointed out in part one, is that Loudoun County Schools had contracted with The Equity Collaborative prior to the Runaway-Slave exercise being used in the school. The incident happened in February 2019. According to documents revealed by Matt Taibbi on his substack (here), you can see the initial contract between the two was for $6,000 in August 2018, prior to the incident. The next contract, for six figures, came after the incident. After the incident, The Equity Collaborative provided a review of the district’s race relations, found them to be racist (shocking), and managed to secure further contracts from the district to solve the problem they helped create.
GHAPS have spent $34,500 with Design Group International. Is this the end of our process? Perhaps it is, as there are rumors that GHAPS will not contract with Design Group International going forward. Or, is it just the beginning? Have they laid the groundwork for the next racial crisis, through the use of the training material provided, some of the same source material that caused the racial crisis in Loudoun? Will Design Group International be holding their hands out looking for another payday after an incident (that they helped facilitate) happens? Or, as process consultants, have they provided GHAPS with a guide to the next steps in GHAPS’ process?
I keep using “process” in these articles. What might this mean in this context? A recent Fox News article touched on this subject. A parent in a school district in Pennsylvania obtained professional development day training material through FOIA. The professional development training was presented by… Pacific Education Group. In other words, Glenn Singleton. Here is a slide from their presentation.
So, using this, GHAPS has just completed the “Courageous Conversation” step. Next is Critical Race Theory. GHAPS have laid the groundwork, or “done the work”, by embedding CRT and antiracism ( a.k.a racism) into the curriculum. GHAPS have partnered with the local organizations The Momentum Center and LEDA that also push these theories. In fact, the Momentum Center has an Anti-Racism Task Force, who’s book list was recommended by the curriculum director for teachers to use to supplement the curriculum.
That would be step two above, “Equity/Anti-Racism”. Student groups such as Calling All Colors have been heavily influenced, if not led, by teachers such as Hailey Barton along with LEDA, by antiracist teachings. GHAPS is prepared for the next step of the process. Will they proceed unabated, or will they wait until the next crisis, and make sure it doesn’t go to waste? If GHAPS have completed their work with Design Group International, who will be contracted for professional development days moving forward? How much will it cost? If Loudoun County is any indication, $34,500 is just the beginning.