A local board of education voted Tuesday night to approve a resolution in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, but by Thursday evening the text of the resolution had been deleted from the school system’s website entirely.
The Griffin-Spalding Board of Education voted on April 13 to approve the new, but apparently controversial, resolution during the regularly scheduled board meeting.
In a 5-1 vote, Board members passed language asking “Americans to ‘dismantle white supremacy’ and ‘grapple with the sins of our past’ as nationwide protests against racial injustice,” and citing that “what happened to George Floyd and other unarmed African-Americans was not the result of a bad apple; it was the predictable consequence of a racist and prejudiced system and culture that has treated Black bodies as the enemy from the beginning.”
The Resolution goes on to state that the school system supports the Black Lives Matter Movement “because All Lives Matter in our school district…” and the school system has a vested interest in “creating an equitable society which is intolerant of intolerance.”
Social media erupted on Wednesday and Thursday as news of the vote traveled and some began calling on state lawmakers to act.
“Everyone has the right to protest…But why is this a school thing? What are we teaching them? It should be outside of the school and the families should decide if it is something that they want to do. This is very concerning to me!!”
“This statement is a clear violation of their non-discrimination policy and should be immediately retracted. The board members that signed it should be forced to step down.”
The non-discrimination policy referenced states that:
Employees, students, and the general public are hereby notified that the Griffin-Spalding County School System does not discriminate in any educational programs or activities or in employment policies. The Griffin-Spalding County School System offers the following career and technical education programs for all students regardless of race, color, national origin, including those with limited English proficiency, sex or disability in grades 9 – 12. AV Technology & Film, Information Technology, Architecture & Construction, Business Technology, Health Science, Early Childhood Education, Engineering, Culinary Arts, & JROTC.
But despite approving the language, the school system deleted the resolution from the official website Thursday night and removed the text from the previously published agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.
The Georgia Virtue snagged a screenshot of the resolution before it was deleted from the school’s website and you can read it in its entirety below. The school system has not responded to requests for comment.
GSCS BOE Meeting, April 13
Griffin-Spalding County Board of Education regular meeting for April 13, 2021
Our school board is a bunch of cowards, giving in to these racists Spalding county residents! It’s a shame.
First siging the BLM resolution stating all white people are white supremacist and it is in embedded in our school systems, then Foundations in Equity FIE, which is based in implicit bias and reallocating funds from those deemed privileged (white) to those deemed underserved ( people of color). FIE is an evolution of CRT a Marxist theory based on using race to divide. All the board members will meet with great challengers, I hope and pray you are all unseated in upcoming in 22 and 24, all of your marxists.