Virginia school posts, removes 'Woke Kindergarten' video, report
A Virginia elementary school reportedly posted a video on its website, as part of a summer-learning guidance program, that suggested being near police makes people feel unsafe.
"I feel safe when there are no police," the narrator says in the now-deleted video, titled "Woke Kindergarten 60 Second Texts: Safe," according to Fox News.
A spokesperson for the Fairfax County Public Schools, in northern Virginia, said the video was mistakenly posted and removed as soon as officials became aware of its existance.
The video had been included in a summer learning guide at Bailey’s Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences, in Falls Church, Va. It was included with content related to critical race theory, the Black Lives Matter movement and news articles critical of white parents, according to the Fairfax Times.
The "Woke Kindergarten" Instagram link was also reportedly shared on the school’s website as part of a list of "equity resources for teachers.”
Screenshots of the now removed content show the "Woke Kindergarten" material was linked to a document on summer reading for second-graders under a subsection called "Mentor Texts for Writing," Fox also reports.
Parents reportedly saw the links before they were removed.
Asra Nomani, a vice president at Parents Defending Education who has teenage children enrolled in the district, said the summer guidance may have also been available to students at other public schools in Fairfax County.
The group preserved a copy of the summer learning guide before it was taken down by the district.
"The message that they're trying to send to the second graders is exactly the mixed messages that adults are having to deal with, which is, we feel unsafe out in the streets now because of the entire ‘defund the police’ movement that has led to less police presence," she told Fox News on Thursday. "But now the police are being blamed for it. So it's this contradiction that is basically very manipulative – and it's so inappropriate for second-graders to have to grapple with this."