Parents Share Stories of Children Learning CRT in Florida Schools: “The Oppression Olympics”

April 25, 2022 Updated 11:27 A.M.

HIALEAH (FLV) – Several parents shared examples of teachers using critical race theory in their students’ curriculum in Florida public schools at a press conference where Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the Stop W.O.K.E. Act Friday. 

Alysha “Aly” Legge, a black mother of five children in Hillsborough County, said her family has been affected by critical race theory the last three years in public school. 

“To being told that my child should denounce the father that has raised him as his own since he was three years old because he is white,” Legge shared Friday.

Legge applauded the Governor for signing the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, which bans educators and workplace employers from teaching Floridians that their “moral character” is determined by race, sex, or national origin.

“Can you imagine my children who are various shades of melanin being told that because they are of lighter skin they are oppressors or of darker skin they are oppressed. What does that do to them mentally and emotionally?” Legge asked. 

Legge is running for school board in Hillsborough County. 

Quisha King is a mother of two in Jacksonville who also spoke at the press conference. King said her daughter’s teacher asked the eighth grader what pronoun she would prefer the first week of school.  

King said a language arts teacher also held a class discussion asking students to share how they are discriminated against because of their race or gender. 

“It turned into total chaos. The children just started going back and forth with each other. It was unbelievable. It was basically the oppression olympics in the classroom. They were all vying to be more oppressed,” King said. 

The school also attempted to host a segregated assembly where the black children were required to meet at 9:30 a.m. and the white kids to meet at 10 a.m. King said parents shut down the event after learning about it. 

Christine Chaparro is a Cuban-American Mother of three in Broward County who shared what her fifth grader learned in a language arts class.  

Chaparro said her child was encouraged to research an author who co-authored an anti-racism book with Ibram Kendi. In the same class, her child was taught that Stacey Abrams lost Georgia’s election for Governor in 2018 because the vote had been “suppressed” because she was a woman of color. The word “suppressed” was the vocabulary word. 

Chaparro said another vocabulary practice test talked about racism and a Black Lives Matter Protest. 

“Now some may argue that these examples are not that bad,” Chaparro said. “But when you pull together this series of workbooks as an English language arts curriculum, it’s not civics. It’s not social studies.”

Other curricula taught her children that racism, bias and discrimination are the cause of the current economic development of cities.

“It’s obvious that the goal is to teach children to view history in our country through one lens,” Chaparro said.

Chaparro will move her children into private school next year. All three parents supported the new legislation that bans workplace training or schools from teaching that anyone is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.

You can watch the full press conference from Friday here.