YORKTOWN, Ind. (NewsLink) -- According to the Indy Star, House Bill 1134 was dropped by the state Senate last Wednesday after a closed-door meeting. Across the nation, education-based bills concerning critical race theory in public schools are being introduced to their state legislatures. Yorktown Middle School teacher Holly Summers expressed her concerns about the bill presented to her work.
“I feel like for math, the biggest thing that would change would be that if we had to stick to the schedule,” Summers said. “I do feel that I make a lot of adjustments with kids, especially this year with what they missed last year. I think that would be where you see the biggest issue.”
House Bill 1134 was originally asking teachers to stop teaching students about concepts of race, gender and ethnicity. Its goal was to ban the teaching “that an individual, by virtue of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”
“It’s not going to change anything for me. And I know I probably don’t have the popular teacher opinion on that. I mean, I know a lot of people say that ‘if this’ll pass, if this’ll pass, then I’m going to leave teaching.’ And there may be some like that, but I really feel like people that have chosen to be teachers…that’s really what they want to do and they’re gonna find a way to make it work,” Summers said.
The bill went through changes after first being introduced to the State Senate. Amendments included teachers no longer being required to post their classroom materials for parental review and removing the ban on curriculum that makes students feel “guilt or discomfort,” but some educators say these changes provided little comfort.
Summers says knowing that the bill was dropped gives some relief and that “all of us that work in public schools are anxious to work toward ways of making positive change in education and not focusing on additional regulations that don’t best serve the needs of our students.”
For additional information on the bill, contact Olivia Sloniker at omsloniker@bsu.edu.
