"Deep Equity," "Critical Theory," and "Collectivity" are some of the labels used by school districts in Arizona to implement their version of Critical Race Theory (CRT) documented as far back as 2018. In addition, the schools have implemented an Equity and Inclusion Initiative with 7 Principles for Culturally Responsive Teaching.
UncoverDC spoke with the Arizona Informer telegram channel administrator who is an activist in Arizona. She has no children in the schools but is alarmed with the CRT and the "Comprehensive Sex Ed" curriculum.
Principles for Culturally Responsive Teaching/Chandler School District/Arizona Informer
According to the Arizona Informer, two initiatives—Deep Equity Training as well as Comprehensive Sex Education—have been running parallel with each other since 2019. The Comprehensive Sex Ed began to surface around 2015.
Lindsay Love has played a prominent role in the adoption of both. She sits on the Chandler (CUSD80) school board and evidently, her sister is the Chair of Planned Parenthood Arizona.
Lindsay Love Social Media/Twitter/FB/Arizona Informer
According to the Arizona Informer:
"The Tweet and Facebook posts above were posted in 2020. It was this tweet that prompted her to change her Twitter handle and go private after getting completely ratioed. Her new Twitter handle is Luv2Disrupt."
Video featuring Lindsay Love's conflict of interest and the Chandler School Board:
In the video below, Love is seen interviewing with a representative from CAIR-AZ, where she explains why she became a school board member. She states, "the most marginalized students have been suffering trauma and discrimination in the schools." She said that black children as "young as five" "get criminalized," something "you see a lot with black children." The "systems," she explains, "have let them down."
Peoria School District in the Northwest Valley, Kyrene School District, and the Chandler School District are among the schools named as having implemented programs associated with "restorative justice, equity, and social-emotional learning," all code words for CRT. Additionally, the Informer explains that battles with the implementation of Comprehensive Sex Ed classes have been ongoing since as far back as April of 2015. Apparently, proponents of Planned Parenthood have been influential in Arizona schools.
The Arizona Informer reports that school boards and school administrations have been using third-party vendors, like Corwin, for teacher training and training materials, curriculum and media databases and school libraries to "sneak the stuff in."
The local teacher's union, the AEU, has been caught promoting "politicking in the classroom and recruiting for activism," per the Informer admin. One way they accomplish this is to put a line item on the syllabus and then send out a permission slip to parents, knowing many will just sign it without realizing their agenda.
Arizona Permission Slips/Arizona Informer Telegram Channel
They have also been caught discussing how to sneak in the Comprehensive Sex Ed materials and asking students to participate in protests to influence Governor Ducey.
Protests and Politicking/Arizona Informer
Linked here is the PDF on the Equity and Inclusion initiative from the Chandler and Kyrene school districts from 2018, utilizing Corwin materials to introduce "The Equity Inclusion Initiative" in response to a Governing Board Resolution. This resolution was introduced due to reports of an incident with a student who posted a Snapchat of local junior high school students "chanting racist lyrics to a rap song." The song allegedly led with lyrics that celebrated the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.
A parent who wishes to remain anonymous because she has already been doxxed at work told UncoverDC:
” [I] involved because of Red for Ed in 2018. Red for Ed was a movement by the teacher’s unions to increase wages. They all went on strike and walked out of class. It was at that point, [she] became involved and attended a school board meeting and heard about the Equity and Inclusion agenda. In the summer of 2018, CUSD80 sought to include equity and inclusion in the schools and hired Corwin."
This parent and several others were instrumental in exposing Corwin’s materials and biases.
Corwin Materials/Chandler, AZ/Arizona Informer
Corwin also hits hard with teacher training modules. One of them addresses procedures for dealing with "resistance" when training teachers in how to implement these programs in the schools. In the book, Built to Last: The School Leader's Guide for Sustaining Change While Managing Resistance, this is the opening description on the website:
Building change for the long game
It’s natural to resist change—but when we fundamentally commit to putting our students first, we must also commit to make lasting changes in current practice. Can we lead individuals and school teams to embrace strategic effort and lasting growth despite challenging circumstances and inevitable resistance?
A facilitator "how-to" is pictured below. Notably, in the Evaluation Review section, peer pressure is employed to shape the participants' behavior.
"Use this opportunity to directly or indirectly acknowledge or confront resistance behaviors and issues. Make public the most damaging comments you have heard or read" :
Resistance: Facilitator How To/Corwin
The new Director of Equity and Inclusion for the Chandler District as of 2019 is Dr. Adama Sallu. Prior to joining Chandler, she was the Assistant Director of Equity at Kyrene School District. The above PDF explains, CUSD80 hired her because of her resume:
"She is a state and national speaker on equity, having spoken as a panelist at the Arizona School Boards Association (ASBA) Deep Equity Institute in 2017, coached a workshop on Culturally Inclusive Practices for the 2017 Arizona Indian Education Stakeholders Summit, and was the keynote speaker at the 2017 Behavior Education Technology Conference. She has worked with a variety of different equity programs, including WestEd, to create and meet equity goals for Kyrene School District and Gary Howard's Deep Equity Institute. She has served 'on the ADE Culturally Inclusive Practice committee, a group that is working to create a guide for Arizona schools to implement and sustain cultural embedded practices.' In 2016, she was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Diversity Award from the city of Tempe, Arizona and in 2018 was nominated for the 2018 Friend of the Humanities Award."
More on her personal interests are captured below:
Dr. Adama Sallu/Bio/Chandler School District/Arizona Informer
Notably, Save Our Schools Arizona, mentioned in the above bio, is an organization that has openly lobbied against school choice and vouchers and for CRT in the schools. They are currently fighting a K-12 amendment put forward by Senate President Karen Fann.
An exhaustive thread posted by the Arizona Informer can be found on Twitter. Unfortunately, many of the posts seem to have been censored and/or removed and often the thread is broken. However, it goes back to 2019 and is an excellent repository of stories and information on CRT from both Arizona and around the country.
A friend of Arizona Informer, Fortified Patriot on Twitter (@ThatParentP4P), who also runs the Purple 4 Parents website, wants to empower teachers and parents to combat CRT in Arizona schools. Her slogan for the website is Reasonable, Accountable, Responsible. On Tuesday, she Tweeted how schools in Iowa use Social Emotional Learning to "brainwash" children. According to leaked documents Tweeted by Benny Johnson, host of The Benny Report on NewsMax, the Iowa schools are teaching children that the slogan "Make America Great Again," and those associated with it are overt White Supremacists, which is "socially unacceptable."
Fostering Resilient Learners is another organization in Arizona that is teaching kids how to advocate for social justice in schools. In the virtual institute video linked here, they discuss their plans.
Peggy McClain, with Not in Our Schools, told UncoverDC, "[I have] been active in the fight against Comprehensive Sex Ed since January of 2014—when the Tempe Union High School District invited Planned Parenthood into the schools to teach sex-ed." McClain investigates and exposes both Democrats and Republicans by following the "money trails and political ties" that influence education in the state of Arizona. She started the organization "due to poor local media coverage and their slant against exposing the adults who are shoving their agendas on children."
