Dear Editor,
Concerned parents and residents have been speaking with district leaders and at the Columbia County Board of Education (CCBOE) regarding concepts of Critical Race Theory and sexually explicit content found within the schools for months. In response, the Columbia County School District (CCSD) has launched a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on their website. Instead of answering the questions truthfully, the FAQ responses are nothing more than public relations ploy to pacify the public by using generalities. Not only would we welcome transparency from the CCSD leadership, we expect it.
I would like to address one of the items on FAQ, Panorama. The FAQ sections asks, “What is Panorama and why is it controversial?” In part the answer on the CCSD page states, “It has never been here for two reasons. First, with the challenges of COVID, the timing was not good to introduce another large initiative and second, but equally important, we were unable to resolve an issue related to data.”
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This answer “has never been here” implies that the CCSD never had a relationship with the Panorama platform. This is FALSE.
The CCSD signed an annual contract with Panorama on April 19, 2021 and paid $105,980 of Columbia County taxpayer funds to Panorama, with an implementation date of September 2021. In August, I personally met with district leaders on several occasions and spoke at the CCBOE meetings expressing concerns regarding data mining and concepts of Critical Race Theory which are embedded within the Panorama Platform. These concerns were initially dismissed by the CCSD leadership, but just weeks before implementation, the Panorama survey was placed on hold and eventually the contract was cancelled. In November 2021, Panorama refunded the CCSD $89,150 of the $105,980 the CCSD paid them.
The CCSD leadership continues to obfuscate the truth. It is a fact that their pronouncement of Panorama “never being here” and “with the challenges of COVID, the timing was not good to introduce another large initiative” are lies, because the contract between CCSD and Panorama was signed during the COVID pandemic and resources continued to be allocated to support its implementation until just weeks before the “go live” date in September 2021.
The Columbia County residents pay a high rate of taxes to provide the best education for our students. Almost 70% of county property tax is allocated to education. The generous county residents also pay extra sales tax to fund educational facilities by approving Education Special Purpose Local Sales Tax (E-SPLOST). On top of that, we pay federal and state income taxes to fund education, which trickles down to local school districts. We expect these dollars to focus on quality education for our kids, not expensive programs that data mine our children’s emotional health and incorporate Critical Race Theory interventions into the classroom.
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For all that, we expect school leadership to put the quality education as their top priority. When concerned parents ask questions, simply tell us the truth rather than responding with placations. We want transparency.
Some school board members have used derogatory mischaracterizations of concerned parents as agitators. The superintendent has attempted to malign parents’ motives when we mention issues that need attention of leadership.
Concerned parents and residents, I encourage each of you to get involved, review your children’s course material, investigate what they are reading, attend school board meetings, and if you have any concerns, reach out to me at Concerns_CCSD@protonmail.com
Janet Duggan
Martinez
Letters to the Editor are solely the opinions of the author.
