An elementary school teacher who questioned a California school spending $250,000 on a teacher training program called “Woke Kindergarten” was placed on leave by Hayward Unified School District Thursday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Glassbrook Elementary School in California used $250,000 in federal funding for underperforming schools to pay for training for teachers on how to be “anti-racist” and to “disrupt whiteness” in the classroom. Now, the school district that governs the school, Hayward Unified School District, has put Tiger Craven-Neeley, who questioned the program, on leave for “allegations of unprofessional conduct,” according to the Chronicle. (RELATED: Department Of Education Rule To Enshrine Protections For ‘Gender Identity’ Heads To White House)
Craven-Neeley was told via a video call Thursday that he was being put on leave and ordered to turn in his keys and laptop, he told the Chronicle.
Craven-Neeley said he had voiced concerns over the program Wednesday at a staff meeting, after the Chronicle had ran an article last week that included his comments questioning the purpose of the program. After a short while, another teacher stood up, pointed a finger at him, and said, “‘You are a danger to the school or the community,'” and stormed out of the room, Craven-Neeley told the Chronicle.
Shortly after, a district administrator asked Craven-Neeley to leave the meeting, according to the Chronicle.
Craven-Neeley questioned what it meant to “disrupt whiteness” in the classroom in comments given to the Chronicle for a Feb. 3 article on “Woke Kindergarten.”
“What does that mean?” Craven-Neeley told the Chronicle. “I just want to know, what does that mean for a third-grade classroom?”
Scores for English and math at Glassbrook Elementary have fallen since the program’s implementation, with fewer than 4% of students posting proficient scores in math and a little under 12% testing at grade level in English. The decreases were nearly 4-percentage point drops since the implementation of “Woke Kindergarten” at the school.
“We don’t comment on private personnel matters. But I can unequivocally state that we do not place employees on leave for retaliatory purposes, nor have we ever attempted to limit any employee’s free speech rights,” Michael Bazeley, director of public information and governmental relations for Hayward Unified School District, told the DCNF.
Glassbrook Elementary School did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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