Laura Morris, a public school teacher from Northern Virginia, quit her job this week over her school district’s commitment to teaching critical race theory, which she described as a “highly politicized agenda.”
The Loudoun County educator — a Christian — resigned her job as a fifth grade teacher at Lucketts Elementary School in Leesburg in protest of the school district’s embrace of critical race theory and its acceptance of other leftist ideologies.
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Morris told the LCPS board that the content does “not square with who I am as a believer in Christ.” At the same time, she condemned the board for closing the meeting to the public as opponents speak out against the district’s policies.
Over the summer, the now-former teacher said, she has “struggled with the idea of returning to school, knowing that I’ll be working, yet again, with a school division that, despite its shiny tech and flashy salaries, promotes political ideologies that do not square with who I am as a believer in Christ.”
She explained to the board she was told during “so-called equity trainings that white, Christian, able-bodied females currently have the power in our schools, and, quote, ‘This has to change.’”
“Clearly, you have made your point,” Morris said. “You no longer value me or many other teachers you have employed in this county. So, since my contract outlines the power that you have over my employment in Loudoun County Public Schools, I thought it necessary to resign in front of you.”
“School board, I quit,” she continued, clearly emotional. “I quit your trainings and I quit being a cog in a machine that tells me to push highly politicized agendas on our must vulnerable constituents: the children. I will find employment elsewhere. I encourage all parents and staff in this county to flood the private schools.”
Faithwire has previously reported on LCPS policies.
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In late May, a Christian physical education teacher was briefly suspended when he told the school board he wouldn’t “lie” by affirming “that a biological boy can be a girl, and vice versa.”
Tanner Cross, who is a Christian and said he was “speaking out of love for those who are suffering from gender dysphoria,” spoke out in opposition to a new district policy that would require all staff to use students’ preferred pronouns and allow transgender students to participate in sports activities in whatever way matches their sexual and gender identities, regardless of their biological sex.
The policy, Cross said at the time, “will damage children [and] defile the holy image of God.”
“I love all my students, but I will never lie to them, regardless of the consequences,” he said. “I’m a teacher, but I serve God first and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl, and vice versa, because it’s against my religion. It’s lying to a child. It’s abuse to a child. And it’s sinning against our God.”
Around the same time, a group of mothers with children in LCPS classrooms condemned the district for assigning sexually explicit readings to ninth graders.
Parents have also been concerned about the district’s promotion of critical race theory. Last summer, LCPS embraced a “Culturally Responsive Framework,” which calls “for all students, staff, families, and other members of our community to engage in the disruption and dismantling of white supremacy, systemic racism, and hateful language and actions based on race, religion, country of origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, and/or ability.”
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In June of this year, a Chinese woman who survived Mao’s cultural revolution warned the school board about critical theories.
“I’ve been very alarmed at what’s going on in our schools,” she said. “You are now training our children to be social justice warriors and to loathe our country and our history. Growing up in Mao’s China, all of this seems very familiar.”
Van Fleet, who fled China when she was 26 years old, said the communist regime in China “used the same critical theory to divide people.”
“The only difference,” she said, “is they used class instead of race.”