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Thursday, February 13, 2025

Parents, teachers question education bill

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House Bill 1134, Education Matters, passed in the Indiana House along party lines — 60-37 — Jan. 26 and is headed to the Indiana Senate for debate.

HB 1134 — which would require teachers to post their curriculum online and allow parents to opt their children out of certain lessons — has sparked debates about keeping children safe and teaching American history accurately. Many proponents argue that history lessons regarding slavery or the Holocaust could disturb children, and that parents have a right to know and weigh in on what their children learn at school. Some Black parents and educators, however, see the bill as a way of whitewashing history for the comfort of white parents.

Marshawn Wolley, a business owner and father of a fourth grader at Fishback Creek Public Academy in Pike Township, said the bill would severely limit the historical leaders his son can learn about in school. For a school project, Wolley’s son decided to write about Madam CJ Walker, a business owner and the first Black woman to become a millionaire.

“He was able to point out that Black people were treated poorly and Walker developed something that helps Black women,” Wolley said. “The way this law is set up, it could potentially erase Madam Walker, because how does Madam CJ Walker exist outside the context of racism and the obstacles she had to overcome?”

The bill, authored by Rep. Anthony Cook, R-District 32, would prohibit a school from teaching certain concepts about race and ethnicity, and discourages teachers from discussing topics that could make students feel “discomfort or guilt.” The bill is similar to Senate Bill 167, which died in committee in January after the bill’s author, Sen. Scott Baldwin, R-Noblesville, made national headlines for arguing teachers should not openly oppose Nazi ideology in the classroom.

Cook, a former principal at Noblesville High School and Superintendent of Hamilton Heights School Corporation, said parents should have a say in what their children learn. That’s why, he said, teachers and schools would be required to post curriculum activities on the school website, giving parents the ability to opt their child out of certain activities and lessons. This, Wolley said, will make it difficult for children to understand the world around them as they get older.

“It will rob them of really understanding a multi-racial society, and they won’t have any context to understand what’s going on with people,” Wolley said. “We’ve experienced this before in history, after the Civil War when the Daughters of the Confederacy tried to manipulate history and make the Civil War not about slavery, but a war about northern aggression. If you talk about slavery outside the constructs of racism, you are erasing history and the significance of history. This is full-sale manipulation for political means.”

Beyond limiting what educators can teach in class, this bill would also require a school employee to get parental consent to discuss social and emotional health with their students.

One section of the bill reads: “Provides that a student shall not be required to participate in personal analysis, an evaluation, or a survey that reveals or attempts to affect the student’s attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings without parental consent.”

Shawnta Barnes, a longtime educator and education consultant, is concerned the bill would make it difficult for students in need of counseling or other emotional assistance to get help. Further, it could make it difficult, she said, for teachers to help their students succeed.

“When kids trust you, they’ll tell you things,” Barnes said. “And sometimes, like when it comes to suicidal ideation or things that could bring them harm, that trust can help you help them. When kids feel close to you and trust you, they know you care about them, and that can lead to greater educational success. When I can connect with students, I can get them to try, even when the work is hard.”

Along with being an educator, Barnes is also the mother of twin boys, who are in the fifth grade and are avid readers. If this bill passes, both Wolley and Barnes said their children will continue to learn about Black leaders, culture and history.

“I’m raising a Black male, so he has to be empowered. He has to know what’s happened in the past, and what he’s able to do now because of the others that came before him,” Wolley said. “My concern is what happens to kids who don’t get this at home when they become adults and get into the workforce? How will they understand the pain Black people experience when another Black male is killed? How will they understand the distinction when we say ‘Black Lives Matter,’ because all they’ll have been taught is ‘All Lives Matter?’”

House Bill 1134 had a first reading in the Senate’s Committee on Education and Career Development on Feb. 1.

Contract staff writer Breanna Cooper at 317-762-7848 or email at BreannaC@indyrecorder.com. Follow her on Twitter @BreannaNCooper.

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