Preble Shawnee

Sent Home Via Final Forms to All Parents/Guardians

November 8, 2021

Dear Parents/Guardians:

After meeting with other Preble County schools the decision has been made to not use the Panorama Survey for our students.  There have been enough concerns raised within our community and parents to change the pathway we will use to gather information that we would like to use to help us guide our assistance with our students Social and Emotional Supports.  I do understand that time was taken to provide PD and guidance on how to administer the survey and apologize for the change as I do value and respect your time.  However, I would like to make sure that any data we collect is data from all students and not just a particular set of students because of parents withdrawing their students due to concerns about the survey.  In case you are not aware, there were concerns that the data collected by Panorama would be used by them to tie our students to some aspect of CRT.  We cannot control what some think or read, but we do have to listen to concerns, and this was a major concern in our community.

I would also like to address CRT

• Definition of Critical Race Theory:  Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.

• We are not and will not be adding this to any curriculum at Preble Shawnee now or anytime in the future.  There have never been any plans and will not be any plans.  We use a variety of instructional tools in our classrooms, and we use a variety of surveys to see how we can better meet our students' needs, but we would never allow anything that would promote or teach CRT in our schools.  We also do not allow our staff to teach CRT as they all know they are required to follow the curriculum of the state standards that are aligned with the state assessments our students take yearly.  These include the basics of Reading, Writing, Math, Social Studies, Science, Health, Music, PE, and Art. All taught curriculum must be board approved.