California School District Paid $20k to Organization Called “Woke Kindergarten”

EXCLUSIVE — A
California
school district paid an education consultancy organization called “Woke Kindergarten” $20,000 for a monthlong
teacher
training program on “anti-racist” and anti-bias curriculum in
elementary
school.

Hayward Unified School District contracted Woke Kindergarten at its district board meeting this week in order to continue training staff at Glassbrook Elementary School in anti-racism, a phrase commonly associated with
critical race theory
.

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The district’s contract abstract says teachers and staff will “learn how to use Woke Kindergarten’s resources and pedagogical approaches in practice as a way to disrupt whiteness, white dominant/settler colonial narratives and anti-Blackness in the Glassbrook community.”

The Maryland-based consultancy group was founded by Akiea Gross, a self-described “abolitionist early educator, cultural organizer and creator” who is “currently innovating ways to resist, heal, liberate and create.” Gross identifies as a “Black, queer, nonbinary and trans abolitionist” who uses they/them pronouns.

On its website, Woke Kindergarten says it is a “global, abolitionist early childhood ecosystem and visionary creative portal” that is “supporting children, families, educators and organizations in their commitment to abolitionist early education and pro-black and queer and trans liberation.”

Gross’s organization markets itself as “the only abolitionist early childhood ecosystem” of its kind.

In a sampling of some of the organization’s slides, trainees are told that “liberation is the goal, abolition is the journey.”

Another slide juxtaposes details of school rules and routines with prison rules, claiming that “school is like prison” because both have an “authoritarian structure” and dress codes, require walking in lines, and maintain a regimented schedule for eating and other activities.

“The prison industrial complex manifests in early childhood in a variety of ways and anti-racist teaching and reform just isn’t disruptive enough,” the slide says.

Hayward Unified School District, located just south of Oakland, did not respond to a request for comment.

The contract was first noticed by the parent activist group Parents Defending Education. Erika Sanzi, the parent organization’s director of outreach, called Woke Kindergarten “ideological indoctrination” that has “no place in a kindergarten classroom or any classroom.”

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“In a single month, 20,000 in public dollars are being spent on a consultant dedicated to abolitionist education that describes itself as pro-black and queer and trans liberation,” she told the Washington Examiner. “The organization literally teaches 5-year-olds that they can identify as a boy or girl or neither or a tree.”