Another Texas school superintendent has stepped down amid criticism from parents concerned about liberal indoctrination in their children’s classrooms.
At a special meeting Monday afternoon, Clear Creek Independent School District’s board of trustees accepted the retirement of Superintendent Eric Williams, effective in January 2023.
Conservative parents in the Houston-area district had complained that Williams, who started in early 2021, was subjecting their students to liberal ideologies he brought from his former job as superintendent of public schools in Loudoun County, Virginia.
The affluent Washington, D.C. suburb was ground zero for what’s become a powerful parent movement across the country.
Loudoun moms and dads started speaking out at school board meetings in the wake of COVID closures. Parents called out their district officials’ lack of transparency; pushed back against politicized cultural issues like critical race theory and radical gender ideologies being promoted in classrooms; and fought sexually explicit books in libraries and boys in girls’ bathrooms, which led to a campus rape case the district tried to cover up.
Williams came under fire from Loudoun parents after an email surfaced in which he acknowledged some LCPS policies “do align with the ideology of CRT.”
According to the Houston Chronicle, parents in Clear Creek ISD began calling for Williams’ resignation in December, criticizing the district’s use of a “social emotional learning” program called CharacterStrong as a vehicle for promoting values based on CRT and other liberal ideologies.
The superintendent’s base salary for the 2021-22 school year was $345,409.
Williams told the board Monday he is taking a leave of absence to deal with family issues but will return to help train a replacement.
Now another Texas school district is searching for a new superintendent.
The board named former CCISD Superintendent Karen Engle to step in as interim superintendent while Williams is on leave.
