NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and language will be removed from New Hanover County School’s strategic plan and — most likely its policies soon as well — per a school board decision Tuesday.
READ MORE: School board members weigh in on Department of Ed’s fate after one shares views on CNN
At the New Hanover County Board of Education’s agenda review, Superintendent Chris Barnes — the title made official earlier in the meeting — sought the board’s direction on compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive orders on DEI and gender ideology.
Board member David Perry indicated in a social media post prior to the meeting that he would put forth several motions to eradicate DEI from the district at Tuesday’s meeting. Ultimately, the board voted 5-2 — Democrats Tim Merrick and Judy Justice dissenting — to have the superintendent remove diversity, equity and inclusion from the strategic plan immediately.
The board also instructed Barnes to bring back policy change recommendations needed to comply with the executive order. Also to come could be changes to the district’s sex education offerings; the district offers two programs, one of which incorporates lessons on gender roles and sexuality.
The vote Tuesday was met with urgency from the board, which received a “Dear Colleague” letter from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. The letter was distributed to all school districts on Feb. 14.
The letter, from OCR’s Acting Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights Craig Trainor, offered further interpretation of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning the implementation of “discriminatory” diversity, equity, inclusion — adding in accessibility as well — mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities in the federal government.
The letter advises school districts to complete the following actions by Feb. 28:
- Ensure ] their policies and actions comply with existing civil rights law
- Cease all efforts to circumvent prohibitions on the use of race by relying on proxies or other indirect means to accomplish such ends
- Cease all reliance on third-party contractors, clearinghouses, or aggregators that are being used by institutions in an effort to circumvent prohibited uses of race
Trainor argues in the letter that DEI practices — such as professional development on inclusive teaching, including diverse material in curriculum, creating opportunities for underrepresented groups — are a form of race-based discrimination, which is against the law.
“Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices,” Trainor writes.
Because the NHCS receives around 10% of its budget annually from federal grants, it must comply or risk losing funding.
Trump’s authority to take away funding appropriated by Congress is under question, as the federal government has temporarily blocked parts of the executive order from taking effect. The Constitution explicitly states the legislative branch has the ultimate authority on government spending and Congress has authorized the U.S. Department of Education to oversee distribution of federal dollars to states and school districts — though Trump has said, again contrary to his executive authority, he would like to dismantle the department.
Though the issue remains unsettled, NHCS compliance with the order was presented as a cautionary and proactive measure as around $20 million and 368 federally funded positions could be caught in the crossfire.
“I do not want to be in a position to lose funding and then have to go after trying to claw it back and find something else to support those positions while we do it — I am just absolutely not in favor of that,” board member Pat Bradford said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Barnes said he would not recommend doing nothing.
“I’ve talked to several superintendents within the state of North Carolina who have had federal funding removed this month,” Barnes said.
The Trump administration has canceled tens of millions of dollars in federal grants for North Carolina teacher training and retention, including a $12-million program in Wake County.
Harkening back to last fiscal year’s budget cuts, which initially saw 279 positions let go, board chair Melissa Mason was adamant that couldn’t happen again.
“We’ve been working so hard over the past month to really repair the climate of our district, to lose that many people would absolutely damage it, and I’m unwilling to allow that to happen,” Mason said.
Barnes said it was his belief that NHCS’ federal IDEA (assistance for students with disabilities) and Title funding (for schools with higher percentages of students from lower socioeconomic classes) had already been committed for this fiscal year, so any loss would be seen after July 1.
Still, he asked the board if they would work with staff on recommendations to bring back or set up a work session for the board to address the letter alongside State Board of Education and North Carolina School Board Association guidance.
Guidance from the North Carolina School Board Association, which writes policies based on state and federal law to be adopted by local boards, highlights eight policies for “priority” review and 12 additional polices that mention diversity, equity and inclusion. Instead of offering changes, NCSBA recommends each school board in the state review the policies with their legal counsel.
Policies affected include 4150 on admission to magnet schools, which lists “maintaining a socioeconomic, demographic and student achievement diversity that is reasonably reflective of the school system as a whole” as a criterion for admission decisions. Diversity is also listed as a quality the board searches for in recruiting staff and faculty in policy 7100.
There are also several policies pertaining to minority-owned and historically underutilized businesses listed as priorities. These policies encourage “good faith efforts” by the school system to contract with businesses in these groups.
Listed in the additional policies for review section, NCSBA notes it has several policies on curriculum and educational programming that represent the diversity of the student body and nation as a whole.
Also listed is policy 4303 on fair discipline, which states the school system’s approach to behavior should be “equitable” and not disproportionate to one demographic per federal law under OCR. The district has been fined by OCR over the last several years due to disproportionate suspensions of Black students with disabilities and Black students considered “emotionally disturbed.”
The district has already removed its diversity and inclusion department as part of last year’s budget cuts and the board voted to disband the diversity committee in December 2023. However, diversity, equity and inclusion remained a pillar of the district’s 2022-2027 strategic plan, which was taken down from the NHCS website after Tuesday’s meeting.
The board’s Democrats pushed back on the hastiness of the decision, voting against moving the presidential mandate discussion from the information agenda to action items.
Merrick advocated against “running scared” based on potentially unconstitutional and everchanging federal action.
“I would support a motion that says before we follow the law; I would second that and vote for that,” Merrick said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re going to strike down things that are in our curriculum, things that are part of our core values, because of an executive order that might be dropped down from federal court tomorrow.”
Board member Pete Wildeboer said he was insulted by the thought the board was “running scared,” pointing out Merrick went on CNN earlier this month to stress the importance of retaining federal funding.
Both Merrick and Justice said the district would not lose federal funding in one swift motion and, therefore, had time to get legal advice and review its options.
However, board attorney Brian Kromke acknowledged the lack of legal clarity surrounding these issues, but that his responsibility was to do what’s best for NHCS.
“I think we should adopt a strategy to ensure we do not lose a cent from the federal government at this point,” Kromke said. “How we go about that, there is no legal treatise I can pick up and tell you that road map; you’re gonna have to figure it out as a board with advice from all these different entities.”
Bradford said there will be “examples of school boards made” and NHCS doesn’t want to be one of them, also noting the board can return to the strategic plan and replace the DEI pillar in further meetings.
“Our board has taken steps to focus on opportunity for our students, and we’re going to continue to do that when we’re talking about teaching strategies and scaffolding and early intervention,” Barnhart said.
Family life curriculum
The discussion over DEI was followed up with a less clear conversation over the district’s sex education courses. Though gender is not the subject of the OCR letter, Barnes recommended the board take a look at the curriculum in light of recent presidential action.
Trump has issued several executive orders pertaining to the LGBTQ+ community, the foremost for NHCS being the one titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” The directive calls on several department heads to develop a strategy to accomplish the goal set out in the title which includes a process for rescinding federal funds from being used to:
- “Support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology in” curriculum, instruction, programs, or activities teacher certification, licensing, employment, or training”
- “Directly or indirectly support or subsidize the social transition of a minor student including through school staff or teachers”
- “Deliberately concealing the minor’s social transition from the minor’s parents”
Again, Trump would be reliant on Congress to cut off federal funding it authorized and codified in law.
The district already mandates staff to inform parents of a student’s pronoun change per compliance with state law, along with barring transgender girls from participating on female sports teams, a mandate from another of Trump’s recent executive orders.
NHCS provides two curricula for middle school sex education to be chosen by the parent, who can also opt out of either program. The Stepping Stones curriculum meets national and state standards and the other, My Life, meets state standards. The state’s standards are codified in law and federal standards are just guidelines.
Stepping Stones covers a broader range of topics, including contraception and how to conduct testicular and breast exams; it also covers sexual orientation and gender roles. According to the district’s sex education student enrollment data, Stepping Stones is the most popular choice at every middle school, usually outnumbering My Life enrollment by dozens of students.
“The board, I believe, needs to explore guidance on what is the appropriate response for our staff here,” Barnes said. “I’m certainly not advocating for ending or that we make violent issues or decisions about something, but I think this also bears a little reflection.”
The NCSBA has also issued guidance on its policies that could be affected by recent federal mandates. Districts will have to look at their Title IX and hiring processes based on Trump’s definition of “discrimination based on sex,” which does not include gender identity. The association does recommend districts review policy 3540 on comprehensive health education.
Merrick said he heard the district was discussing only giving parents the option to choose the My Life curriculum, which he thought premature considering only two lessons would need to be removed from the Stepping Stones curriculum to comply with Trump’s mandate.
“I can’t help but see it as a political move by either members of this board or of this district that we would get rid of the entire program,” Merrick said, likening the removal of Stepping Stones as depriving students of medically and scientifically accurate, peer-reviewed education.
Barnhart pushed back, asking if the My Life curriculum was not also accurate and peer-reviewed. Merrick conceded that he meant “incomplete” instead of inaccurate.
Perry said he agreed with Merrick in that some aspects of Stepping Stones needed to go, but his intention was not to rid the district of the curriculum entirely.
Wildeboer suggested the superintendent research alternative programs that would cover Stepping Stones but without the gender and sexuality lessons.
Barnes seemed to agree staff were best equipped to analyze how to respond, given the board didn’t want to stop the program altogether.
“I think none of us sitting around this table right here are the experts in this curriculum to start with,” Barnes said.
His suggestion was to have the attorneys sit down with a group of educators who would come up with a plan to pivot the program if needed.
Ultimately, the board voted unanimously to move discussion of the issue to next week’s regular meeting.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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