One Bay Area school has spent $250,000 of taxpayer money on a radical program known as “Woke Kindergarten.” Unfortunately, two years after initiating the new program test scores at Glassbrook Elementary School in Hayward, California, have not “awakened,” with less than four percent of the school’s children proficient in math and under 12 percent proficient for their grade level in English.
According to Glassbrook’s mathematics scores, less than 17 percent even came close to meeting the standard, and a mere 19 percent came close to meeting the English standard.
“Woke Kindergarten” describes itself as “a global, abolitionist early childhood ecosystem & visionary creative portal.” The website further describes the curriculum as having a “commitment to abolitionist early education and pro-black and queer and trans liberation.”
Among the curriculum’s innovations is the “woke word of the day.” Current entries include “ceasefire,” “strike,” “abolish,” “protest,” “anti-racist,” and “manifestación.”
The founder of “Woke Kindergarten” is Akiea “Ki” Gross, who lists “their” pronouns as “they/them” describes “their-self” as “an abolitionist early educator, coach, consultant and creative entrepreneur currently innovating ways to unlearn, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy.”
Gross has some fairly extreme political views and has stated, “I believe Israel has no right to exist. I believe the United States has no right to exist. I believe every settler colony who has committed genocide against native peoples has no right to exist.”
Hayward Unified School District Superintendent Jason Reimann recently defended the program to The San Francisco Chronicle. According to Reimann, academics were a secondary concern to “helping students feel safe and whole,” which he claims “is part and parcel of academic achievement.”
“We are in favor 100% of abolishing systems of oppression where they hold our students back,” Reimann said. “What I do believe is we should pick providers based on their work and how effective they are.”
According to Reimann, attendance in the school has improved under the “woke” curriculum, with only 44 percent of students now considered “chronically absent” compared with 61 percent the previous year.
Glassbrook teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley, who describes himself as a “gay moderate,” got into some trouble for questioning the curriculum’s definition of “disrupting whiteness,” and how it might benefit a third-grade classroom. Craven-Neely was, reportedly, was banned temporarily from future training sessions.
“As a teacher of Hayward Unified, I shouldn’t have to get on the bandwagon of defunding police or insulting our country,” Craven-Neely told the Chronicle.
