Asking to “reassess” and “consider the damage done to our entire city,” Southlake’s mayor has publicly joined citizens against the Carroll school board trustees on a controversial cultural plan that would divide students against each other, calling for more transparency from district officials.
Last Friday, Southlake Mayor Laura Hill sent a letter to the board of the Carroll Independent School District regarding the divisive Cultural Competence Action Plan (CCAP) that has outraged citizens.
Elements of CCAP include creating “a systemic process for consistently tracking and reporting microaggressions and incidents of discrimination.” There’s no mention of students being considered innocent until proven guilty, nor an appeals process. It also calls for an “LGBTQ+” student focus group for kids in grades 9-12.
The plan was developed by the District Diversity Council, which includes Carroll ISD Board Trustees Michelle Moore and Sheri Mills as members. Upon learning of the plan, citizens became outraged, many claiming they had no knowledge of it until just before trustees were about to vote on it.
In her letter, Hill said the DDC “failed the citizens of Southlake, but most of all, it has failed our kids.”
“It isn’t enough to assume people in our community or any community know what’s going on with the creation of the CCAP, especially when they are not told the scope of the DDC’s work,” she added.
“As elected officials, it is our responsibility to over-communicate, over-engage, and know what groups of taxpayers may be missing our efforts to communicate,” she wrote.
On August 3, Carroll ISD citizens forced the school board to delay implementing the divisive CCAP.
Outrage grew after citizens saw signs that elements of the plan were being implemented anyway. Moore later told Texas Scorecard that parts of the original draft of CCAP had previously been approved by the board in 2018 and were being implemented.
Since citizens rose up to oppose the plan, parents have alleged being harassed by district employees, Superintendent David Faltys announced his resignation, and multiple individuals claiming to be Carroll students have used the phrase “Black Lives Matter” in their speeches to the board in support of CCAP.
The district is now being sued by a parent for allegedly violating the Texas Open Meetings Act, and Texas Values has sent their own open records requests for information regarding CCAP.
With the school district drowning in controversy, cover-ups, and citizen outrage, Hill wrote that the “community remains in a crisis of confidence” and called for a “better, more transparent public process.”
She did commend the board for seeing that it is “time to reassess” the matter, and she invited them to work with her to “fix the process, reengage, and earn back our citizens’ confidence.”
Texas Scorecard sent requests for a response to Hill’s letter to the entire board. No response was received by publication time.
As to where citizens should go from here, Carroll ISD parent Tim O’Hare encourages them to press onward. “Citizens should resist the narrative that if you disagree with CCAP, you’re a racist,” he told Texas Scorecard. “Wanting kids to be treated fairly and with respect does not mean you have to support this leftist, Marxist policy.”
As for allegations that students are being mistreated and CCAP is the solution, O’Hare disagrees. “It’s a failure of district leadership that kids have been mistreated with no discipline, and the student code of conduct, if enforced, is more than adequate to protect kids from mistreatment,” he said. “With a student code of conduct more than 120 pages, I’m not sure what else you can come up with.”
Contact information for Carroll ISD board members is listed below.
Michelle Moore: michelle.moore@southlakecarroll.edu
Todd Carlton: todd.carlton@southlakecarroll.edu
David Almand: david.almand@southlakecarroll.edu
Danny Gilpin: danny.gilpin@southlakecarroll.edu
Eric Lannen: eric.lannen@southlakecarroll.edu
Sheri Mills: sheri.mills@southlakecarroll.edu
Matt Bryant: matt.bryant@southlakecarroll.edu
