Speaking as an alumnus and semi-recent graduate (2017) of Keller High School, I can say with certainty that no one is surprised by Texas Scorecard‘s latest commentary on Keller ISD’s political favoritism towards leftists.
Keller is a deeply conservative city, yet no one would ever know it from our school board. As someone born in Keller who has lived there their entire life, I can say that the city is populated mostly by middle-class, hardworking Christians with a strong appreciation for God, country, and family. Keller is a place where the American flag is the only flag the people would want hanging in their classrooms.
Most Keller citizens would strongly support a teacher’s right to free speech on their own time. However, when the school board allows political flags to be displayed in the classroom for a year, and when the administration of one of the high schools takes to the intercom to promote (leftist) “anti-racist” propaganda, the school board has extended the full imprimatur of the school district to those political statements.
Notably, Keller’s school board is subverting their role as apolitical educators and contradicting its community’s values. While some of the many Christians in Keller would love to display a crucifix or nativity in a classroom, the school district does not display these things because there is a sense of a standard that public schools are for education, not for indoctrination. Apparently, this standard is one-sided. Keller has implicitly admitted that it is fine to indoctrinate children and to continue the employment of individuals that push indoctrination (as long as what they are teaching is in the political vogue).
Upon reading Texas Scorecard’s commentary, one can not help but be supremely struck by one thing. As many may remember, the people of Southlake, Texas, made national headlines at their most recent school board election. After Southlake-Carroll’s school board attempted to impose the teaching of critical race theory, 80 percent of the board was replaced by the voters at the next election. Southlake and Keller are neighbors and fierce rivals in athletics, academics, and extracurriculars. It seems to be rather poetic—a tale of two cities—that as one school board moves strongly to realign the public school system with the community’s values, the other school board drifts slowly away from the values of the people it exists to serve.
One must ask themselves, whom does Keller’s school board serve?
This is a commentary published with the author’s permission. If you wish to submit a commentary to Texas Scorecard, please submit your article to submission@texasscorecard.com.
