The photo above shows protestors at an April Bladen County Board of Education meeting.
The new North Carolina Social Studies Standards has been a hot topic for many in recent months. Many debates, questions, and concerns have been brought to the table about the standards at the Bladen County Board of Education and the North Carolina State Board of Education.
On June 2, 2021, at the NC State Board of Education meeting, Deputy Superintendent of Innovation, Dr. David Stegall, Dr. Angie Mullennix, Director of K-12 Academics (SC&I) and Innovation Strategy, Dr. Kristi Day, Assistant Director of K-12 Standards, Curriculum, & Instruction, and Dr. Lori Major Carlin, Section Chief: Social Studies and Arts Education presented the new Kindergarten through twelfth grade Social Studies Glossary, Crosswalk, & Strand Maps and Kindergarten through fifth-grade Unpacking Documents.
The glossary provides definitions of terms. The “Strand Maps” presented were an outline of the learning progress throughout the year. The difference in each year’s standards and new standards are what lines in the “Crosswalk” documents. The “Unpacking Documents” give examples of how teachers may engage students to accomplish the new objectives.
Dr. Stegall said, “These are supporting documents. The goal of the department is to provide teachers with resources, ideas, any support that maybe can help with the development of the curriculum that they choose locally to most comprehensively address the standards and help their students understand the standards. The purpose of these is to provide that support for the teachers.”
The presenters noted the unpacking documents for the new Social Studies Standards for grades six through twelve will be discussed at the Board meeting in July.
Dr. Carlin walked through examples of each document. As she began her presentation, she said, “Typically, these documents are developed over the course of the installation year. This amazing team has worked diligently to produce quality documents in three months.”
Several teachers worked on the documents, and the NCDPI team provided feedback and editing. Board members asked questions about the documents. Board members questioned the terms in the glossary due to their being open to more than one interpretation, and some terms in the glossary were noted as not having any source of reference.
Superintendent Catherine Truitt confirmed her participation in the document editing.
Truitt said her recommendations were largely requesting that example topics be reduced. Board member Mr. Ford asked Superintendent Truitt about what communities were creating the imbalance of diversity in the new standards.
Superintendent Truitt referred to her notes as she explained on May 3, 2021. She found in the minorities’ reading objectives, all but one was about the African-American culture.
Under the objectives for experiences of disenfranchisement, Dr. Truitt said, “There were 17 suggestions. One had to do with the Jews; one had to do the Asian-Indian Culture, one was Chinese, one was LGBTQ, the remainder with African-American.”
The photo above shows protestors at an April Bladen County Board of Education meeting.
With the sample topics regarding racism and oppression culture, Truitt stated, “There were two LGBTQ, 13 were African-American, one was religious, seven were American-Indian, two had to do with gender. That was the disproportionality I was referring to.”
The Board suggested changing references to “systemic racism,” “gender identity,” and “systemic discrimination” to “racism,” “identity,” and “discrimination.”
When the Board asked the presenter if the changes had been made to the documents to include more diversity in the example topics, the presenter responded, “It has been fixed.” However, they did not elaborate on the changes that were made.
During the meeting, it was announced DPI plans to have the new social studies standards implemented in the classroom by this fall. However, the State Board of Education tabled the approval of the unpacking documents for the new Social Studies Standards.
During the Bladen County Board of Education meeting held on Monday, June 14, 2021, Superindentdant Dr. Jason Atkinson announced there is a proposed delay in implementing the new Social Studies Standards.
There is proposed legislation that would delay the implementation of the new Social Studies Standards. Instead of the new standards being implemented in the upcoming school year, the proposed legislation would not implement the new standards until the 2022-2023 school year.
The link to the meeting broadcasted live on YouTube is linked below.
About Author
