A Williamson County Schools teacher who was forced to sit through the Williamson County Schools Competency Training Series video on “white privilege” contacted The Tennessee Star on Wednesday and delivered a searing critique of the in-service training created and mandated by Williamson County Schools superintendent Mike Looney.
“Please investigate this as I am a Williamson County school teacher and had to sit through the ‘White Privilege’ training. It was a joke. They basically are telling white teachers that we are racist. It is super offensive,” the teacher, who requested anonymity, told The Star.
“We can’t speak up for fear of losing our jobs,” the teacher added.
“You have the power to investigate and hold the leaders of Williamson County accountable,” the teacher told The Star.
“Teachers can’t, we need our jobs but are being forced to endure such offensive assumptions. I judge/see all students’ character. This is what speaks to any teacher. The idea that because a person is white, they are privileged, is ludicrous and offensive,” the teacher continued.
“I am attaching a copy of papers we were given during the training,” the teacher continued.
You can see those papers below:
[pdf-embedder url=”https://tennesseestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/scan-1.pdf” title=”scan (1)”]
As The Tennessee Star reported this month, as part of this In-Service teacher training, one 26-minute video, the third in the cultural competency series, profiles several people whom the narrator described as “Williamson County Voices.”
The video does not identify anyone, nor does it make clear if these people are school system employees or county residents not formally affiliated with the school system. One man, though, identified himself as a school administrator.
In the video, they and the narrator discuss social justice causes, the perks white males supposedly have that others do not, America’s supposed dysfunctional history, and how unfair it all is. At the beginning, an unidentified female narrator encourages teachers to “recognize the construct of privilege and its implications.”
A few minutes in, a female appears and seems to go on a guilt trip about her supposed white privilege. She spoke of receiving things others have not and how she has a responsibility to share her privilege with other people.
Also, as The Star reported, Williamson County officials had the ultimate power to approve an In-service “white privilege” training curriculum for their teachers last month, said Chandler Hooper, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Education.
But that’s inconsistent with the TDOE’s standards and practices on In-service teacher training, as specified on that department’s website.
As reported, The Williamson County School System is serious about prioritizing its In-Service teacher training, so much so administrators spent 22 percent more on it for this 2018-19 school year versus the prior one.
According to the school system’s budget, administrators spent $689,989 on their In-Service/Staff Development training this school year. For the 2017-18 school year, administrators budgeted $564,508.
Williamson County Schools, as reported, will send teachers to a series of workshops in Franklin this coming May that is a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, according to a source.
Those workshops, called Teaching Tolerance, are scheduled for May 3 and May 4 at the Embassy Suites by Hilton in Franklin, according to tolerance.org.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
[…] teachers are reportedly having to go through ‘white privilege’ training, just as teachers in Williamson County had to do earlier this […]
I don’t know what white privilege is supposed to mean, I was raised in a very poor family. My PJs and slips were made from Martha Wjite flower sack. My family were dirt farmers, we raised everything we ate. I didn’t go to a private school, I rode the bus, We carried sack lunches that contained, bologna and crackers or peanut butter and crackers. We didn’t have cookies or pies and cakes those were special occasion items. We did have canned peaches that my grandmother picked to make cobblers. Blackberries. Cherries. We didn’t buy these they were raised. My grand fathers worked in a saw mill and made extra money sharpening saws, my grand mother worked in a strawberry packing plant, my mother worked in a sewing factory sewing shirts, my dad worked in a saw mill cutting timber for floors and furniture. We slept on feather beds, straw beds, we had out houses, we took baths in tubs warmed by the sun in the summer, in the winter water was heated on a Wood stove that was used to cook and bake.
I could go on and on.
So tell me how am I a whire privileged person.
Explain it to me.
[…] teachers are reportedly having to go through ‘white privilege’ training, just as teachers in Williamson County had to do earlier this […]
And…the person who wrote the offensive “White Privilege” paper above is practically illiterate. Their writing is horrible; run-on sentences, incorrect punctuation and unclear subjects. Just another indicator of misplaced priorities in today’s education system. Stop with the social engineering and get back to teaching the three Rs!
This is ridiculous. One of the teachers on that video was my son’s first grade teacher and I have to say, we liked her a lot. Now we are just really disappointed in her for participating in this “looney-cy”
I am ready to file suit. Anyone with me?
The term White Privilege is insulting, derogatory, divisive, borderline racist and just plain wrong.
Mr. Looney if you are so sure of this program, why don’t you go to every school in Williamson County and present your reasoning face to face to every parent instead of hiding behind a scripted video.
I reached out to Mr. Looney personally and had quite the Email exchange with him. He stated “he is actually a Republican whos job it was to remind Williamson County teachers to be respectful of others .”
I believe they call that a RINO ?
And these are the people we trust to educate our children. They can’t even coordinate bus schedules or decide when we should dismiss for weather. We certainly don’t need them telling us about politics and social policies.
Teaching tolerance? Looney the leftist needs to go.
Push back hard and reject the false guilt the left is using. Anything from the SPLC should be
rejected out of hand.
We need for this teacher to national with his experience. Please email Sean Hannity, tell him what williamson schools are doing and agree to appear on Hanity show (in shadow) to expose this racist garbage.