‘Robbed them of their innocence.’ KY school district tosses controversial curriculum.

A controversial curriculum has been discontinued after parents and teachers complained about some inappropriate readings for their Eastern Kentucky elementary and middle school students.

Wit & Wisdom, a Great Minds curriculum for English/language arts classes, was removed following a unanimous Floyd County School Board vote last week.

Wit & Wisdom has received criticism nationwide for having content that is inappropriate for younger students and teaching critical race theory, an academic concept that race is a social construct.

Floyd County Schools adopted the Wit & Wisdom curriculum in May for the 2021 school year, paying $603,000 for the English/language arts curriculum.

At a special called board of education meeting Thursday, instructional staff said the curriculum had reviews of “high student engagement creating the ability to think critically at high levels” and had been adopted by some nearby school districts and hundreds of thousands of schools across the U.S.

The school district was first alerted about concerns regarding texts in the Wit & Wisdom curriculum on Sept. 16, according to Davida Marson, the district’s middle school instructional lead.

Tonia Fugate, a parent of a seventh-grader at Adams Middle School and fifth-grader at Prestonsburg Elementary School, pushed to have the curriculum removed.

Fugate learned one of the stories was about a distressed female student staying after school alone with a male teacher, which she saw as grooming. Other content Fugate said she had concerns about included “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen, which includes a character with suicidal ideation after he learns his mother is having an extramarital affair, and “Separate is Never Equal” by Duncan Tonatiuh, which depicts Mexican kids in cages.

She also expressed concerns about the phrases “angry white faces” and “injustice delivered by the white people” in “The Story of Ruby Bridges” by Robert Coles. It is about the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South.

“I was concerned and shocked,” Fugate said. “I thought it was highly inappropriate for kids this age.”

Fugate said her 10-year-old daughter was reading stories that she could not understand or process and the stories “robbed them of their innocence.”

Fugate contacted her daughter’s principal and Superintendent Anna Shepherd. She also posted about the Wit & Wisdom curriculum on Facebook, which she said “took a life of its own.”

According to Marson, the instructional leaders of four elementary schools met with Wit & Wisdom’s support team to address the questioned content and created committees to review materials.

On Sept. 20, Shepherd said in a statement the school district would remove inappropriate texts but continue to use the curriculum.

“We began addressing this concern immediately and want our parents to know that we will not share inappropriate material with your children,” she said. “Your children are our kids too and we love them and only want what’s best. We are glad this concern was brought to our attention as we now have a process in place and more awareness of the possibility of questionable content.”

Fugate said she wanted the entire Wit & Wisdom curriculum to be replaced.

Marson said she and other instructional leads reached out to Williamson School District for advice. The Tennessee school district received criticism several months ago about its selection of the Wit & Wisdom curriculum.

Brent Rose, the high school instructional lead for Floyd County schools, told the board the curriculum is of high quality but some texts have content that makes parents and educators uncomfortable. He said the instructional team did not read all 134 texts associated with the curriculum, but the team has read many of them as teachers and administrators.

“Does anyone think the three of us or any educator in Floyd County would want kids to read content that does not meet the standards of our families and homes?” he said. “It has been said the members of this team are solely responsible for this curriculum and that is simply not true.”

Rachel Crider, the district’s elementary school instructional lead, said previous Superintendent Danny Adkers asked the team for a new curriculum in December. The issue was discussed among educators until the new curriculum was adopted unanimously in May by the board.

Shepherd said the pandemic had an impact on the Wit & Wisdom review because the process occurred when schools were meeting virtually.

The school district will resume using the curriculum from last school year.

This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 12:53 PM.