SUBTLE BUT SIGNIFICANT CHANGES AT LHPS
In January 2018, a LH parent expressed concerns to new LH president Adm. Alfred Harms about the potential for radical, Marxist Woke ideology (See Understanding Woke) LINK gaining a foothold within LH. President Harms assured the parent that “as long as I’m president that will never be part of LH”. In the summer of 2020, on President Harms’ recommendation, LH leadership fully embraced Woke ideology as the operational pedagogy of LH going forward. Citing emails and original sources from President Harms, this is the timeline of that transformation and the continued efforts of an ever-growing group of LH parents to get straight answers from LH leadership.
Some LH Parents Concerns
In a January 4, 2018, email to newly appointed President Adm. Alfred Harms, and then Chairman of the Board of Trustees, David Jablonski, a parent of 2 young LH children (2nd & Pre-K) raises concerns about the dominance of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Gender Theory (CGT) See What is CRT?) LINK (See What is CGT ?) LINK Specifically, that LH leadership might be pressured, either from within or without, to embrace these Woke doctrines and dogmas in its administration and curriculum in violation of LH’s stated mission and principles. (See Letter to President Harms and Chairman Jablonski) LINK
In a January 19, 2018, email response, President Harms says he shares these same concerns about “political correctness”. Speaking “for the entire Board”, he commits to “staying steadfastly focused on LHPS stated mission…in the ongoing struggle of individualism, choice, and self-determination versus collectivism, group think and moral servitude. To do any less would be treasonous to our most cherished values and freedoms and risk our very existence as ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave.’” (Download 1-19-18 e-mail from President Harms) LINK Later, in a March 20th, 2018, face to face meeting in the LH President’s office, Adm Harms assures that “...as long as I’m president that will never be a part of Lake Highland.”
Atlas Weekly Syllabus Browser and the CGT Gender Studies Class
In early 2019, using the “Atlas” weekly class syllabus browser available on LH’s website for years, the LH parent discovers the CGT course, Gender Studies in LH’s curriculum within the Global Online Academy (GOA) section. On June 19, 2019, President Harms is hand-delivered a detailed 28-page critique of the course’s specific content. Citing peer-reviewed scientific literature and other authoritative sources, the analysis demonstrates the scientific absurdity of CGT generally, and that the LH course content is not a presentation of balanced, grounded knowledge regarding issues of gender, gender dysphoria or the natural dimorphic sex differences of human beings. Rather, the class Gender Studies is purposefully designed to indoctrinate, train, and weaponize LH students into becoming zealous CGT activists in their local home and school environments. (Download entire 28-page analysis from a parent to Pres. Harms) LINK
On June 27, 2019, President Harms indicates he has “reviewed the information you provided and is working on a plan of action” (Download e-mail from Lynn Math on 6-27-19) LINK On July 2, 2019, President Harms states, “Like you, I’m unimpressed by several of their (GOA’s) offerings” and promises more details soon. (Download President Harms e-mail on 7-2-19) LINK
On September 11, 2019, President Harms explains that “all GOA courses are taken for credit” towards graduation but does not address the content of the Gender Studies course specifically. He announces an updated “oversight process for all GOA courses” in which course content will be “reviewed” and “If we believe it does not meet our academic standards or our school’s values/mission, we will notify the student’s parents accordingly, and inform them that LHPS will not award academic credit for the course.” (Download President Harms e-mail of 9-11-19) LINK
On September 19, 2019, seeking clarification, President Harms is emailed specific questions, including: was the Gender Studies course actually reviewed?; does the course “meet LH’s academic standards or our school’s values/mission”?; will it remain a part of the LH curriculum, and if so, will there be a pre-requisite class/education in the scientific subdisciplines proving the genetic or biological origins of the dimorphic division of human beings into male and female sexes?; will LH consider constructing a mandatory unit grounded in the natural science to prepare students for their inevitable encounter with CGT social construction dogmas and group identities? (See e-mail to President Harms on 9-19-19) LINK
Receiving no reply, follow-ups are emailed to President Harms on October 21, 2019 (Download e-mails to President Harms on 10-21-19) LINK and again on 1-22, 20) LINK
On January 26, 2020, President Harms finally replies, indicating he “will respond as soon as possible” after discussing with his “leadership team”. (Download e-mail to President Harms on 1-26-20) LINK He also asks for another copy of the 28-page critique of the Gender Studies course. (Download e-mail from President Harms on 1-26-20) LINK However, President Harms never does answer any of the specific questions raised in the September 19, 2019, parent email about the GOA Gender Studies course.
In early 2020, LH’s website is taken down. When it comes back up months later, the Atlas weekly class syllabus browser is now gone. Initially, President Harms describes its disappearance as “temporary” and denies it has anything to do with the questions raised about the Gender Studies class discovered in LH’s curriculum. (However, oddly similar, in late 2020/early 2021, President Harms also eliminated LH parent’s ability to search all 3 (lower, middle and upper) school libraries. He removed this technology from LH’s website just days after a LH parent shared with him that they had used it to search book titles in all 3 LH libraries and found many titles celebrating Marx and Marxists/Socialist thought but found very few titles by free market advocates or critics of Marxism. After agreeing to allow the LH parent to donate additional books celebrating free markets and documenting Marxist genocide in 20th century (i.e., A. Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Peace Prize winning Gulag Archipelago) President Harms eliminated the ability to run the same search again. (Download e-mails beginning 12-18-20 thru 4-6-21 between LH parent, President Harms and librarian Mrs. Wray) LINK Now, LH parents with only lower school children have only limited “access to the lower school library because your children are only part of that division”. Despite being asked in writing, President Harms has never answered why he made these changes. (Download e-mail to President Harms on 2-26-21)
It’s vital that every LH parent understand the significance of the removal of the Atlas weekly syllabus browser from LH’s website, especially given the DEI Director’s broad authority to remake LH’s curriculum (See Outline of DEI Director’s Powers) LINK
Prior to removal, every LH parent could use the Atlas browser to view the weekly class syllabus of any class offered by LH regardless of the grade of their child. In other words, every LH parent could see exactly what LH leadership was planning to teach their child at every school level (lower, middle and upper) and plan accordingly. (See example of what LH parents were able to see prior to removal by LH - Atlas Weekly Syllabus Browser) LINK
Now, after removal of the Atlas browser, LH parents are barred from viewing the weekly syllabuses of LH classes, unless your child is taking that class. LH parents are allowed only a one paragraph general course description in that school levels curriculum guide, but only if they have a child in that specific level school (lower, middle, upper).
The LH website is no help, as it uses vacuous 1-2 sentence summaries for “Social Studies” or “Language Arts” etc. (See LH “Academics”) LINK In other words, parents with children only in the lower school can see only a general course description of classes in lower school only. They are prevented from seeing even the general class description for classes in middle or upper school. Likewise, LH parents with a child only in the middle school cannot see even the general descriptions for upper school classes. Finally, unless your child is in a specific class, the weekly curriculum of what is taught at LH to our children in any class is now hidden from view to all LH parents. However, the sweeping mandate of the new DEI Director is to “Initiate Sensitivity Training and …programmatic and curricular discussions, and potential changes to all schools.” (See DEI Powers Outline) LINK
In addition to dropping a curtain between parents and their children’s curriculum, in 2020 LH’s new leadership literally replaced the school’s 50-year emphasis on “Christian Values” with the Woke ideology of “Diversity Equity & Inclusion”. Ever since LH had a webpage thru December 19, 2019, it described itself (“About”) in terms of its “Christian Values.”
"DEI In, "Christian Values" Out
In 2020 new LH leadership took down the website, re-designed it (without Atlas), and then brought the webpage back up on January 23, 2021. Now, LH describes itself (”About”) in terms of “Diversity Equity & Inclusion”. LH leadership literally replaced LH’s “Christian Values” with the Woke mantra of “Diversity Equity & Inclusion”. These are not the same set of principles. (See They Share Our Vocabulary but Not Our Dictionary in Understanding Woke Ideology) LINK
The significance of this subtle but significant change cannot be overstated. In fact, it is fundamental. This new direction for LH is unmistakably Woke and antithetical to all principles of colorblindness. Now LH students and faculty are to be taught the importance of their group “Identity”, “Race and ethnicity” and the Woke concept of “Equity”. (See Understanding Woke” LINK (See also Equity in Translations from the Wokish Encyclopedia) LINK LH now embraces the use of the scientifically discredited “Implicit Bias” testing to measure its white faculty and student’s unconscious racism towards non-whites. (See Psychology’s Favorite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job, J Singal April, 2017) LINK LH now teaches the highly politicized Woke concept of “Allyship”, in which “privileged” white people are expected to support “oppressed” non-whites and the Woke worldview. (See Allyship in Translations from the Woke Encyclopedia) LINK
Moreover, now LH’s webpage celebrates that it sends LH faculty and students to the NAIS’s People of Color Conference (PoCC) and the Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC) for “leadership training”. (See above.) These are undeniably Woke, racist, segregationist conferences designed to indoctrinate attendees and teach them to return to indoctrinate their respective schools. (See What is NAIS?) LINK (See NAIS PoCC Course Content) LINK
2020/21 LH Goes Woke
In 2020, the chairmanship of the LH Board of Trustees changes hands and additional new trustees are added to the board.
LH leadership did not reveal to any LH parents until late summer 2020 that LH was embracing Woke CRT/CGT pedagogy. However, in early 2020, just months after promising answers to concerned LH parents, President Harms proposed the DEI Initiative and the creation of the DEI Director’s position to LH’s Board of Trustees. According to President Harms “LHP’s DEI program was first proposed and approved in the late spring/early summer of 2020. It was first proposed by me, as President LHP, and approved by the LHP Board of Trustees.” He explained that the Board of Trustees then formed “an ad hoc Trustee DEI Committee last summer” and they were “briefed on and approved our 2020-21 DEI goals.” (Download e-mail chain between a LH parent and President Harms beginning 3- 8- 21) LINK (See content of an e-mail discussion between a LH Charter Member alumnus and President Harms) LINK
After over a year without the promised follow-up from President Harms regarding the CGT Gender Studies class, on September 10, 2020, an email is sent to the new Board of Trustee Chairman, Jeff Deery. (Download letter to Chairman Deery on 9-11-20) LINK
Mr. Deery replied generally but offered no specifics and refused a face-to-face discussion with LH parents to discuss CGT course in LH’s curriculum.
However, that same week, LH’s newly created DEI ad hoc Committee issued a “DEI Survey”. This was the first time that LH leadership revealed they were embracing Woke pedagogy. The DEI Survey, called AIM, was crafted by and borrowed from the National Association of Independent Schools (See “What is NAIS?) LINK
AIM, explicitly embraced the CGT social constructive dogma of the GOA Gender Studies class in LH’s curriculum. Specifically, question #6 of the survey asked, “What Sex were you assigned at birth: Male, Female or Intersex”.
Later that Summer 2020, LH’s website comes back online (again, without Atlas.) Under the subheading “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” is a link to the NAIS “People of Color Conference” (PoCC) and the NAIS’s “Student Diversity Leadership Conference” (SDLC.) LH’s website celebrates that both LH faculty and LH students are sent to the PoCC and the SDLC for “leadership training.” (Note: In January 2022, the link to PoCC/SDLC was removed from LH’s website. When asked why, President Harms claimed, “I don’t know”. However, he did confirm that the PoCC is still a resource where LH sends its faculty and students for leadership training.
The NAIS PoCC is a patently Woke, racist, segregationist organization whose purpose is completely antithetical to LH’s mission statement, honor code and ML King’s wisdom of a color blind society. (See What is NAIS?) LINK
January 4, 2021, Info Dump and the End of Parent Q & A
In late 2020, after discovering LH’s embrace of Woke within its administrative structure (via the DEI Director position) and within its programs and curriculum (via DEI and NAIS’s PoCC/SDLC “leadership training”) LH parents have new, and renewed, questions. On January 4, 2021, President Harms gives a slide presentation which confirmed LH leadership has enthusiastically embraced Woke CRT and CGT without reservation. (See entire Slide presentation) LINK Slide # 7 below labeled “Levels of Inclusive School Communities”-reveals where LH is after DEI and where it is going.
These slides were designed by the National Diversity Practitioners Institute (NDPI) which, like the NAIS PoCC holds Woke training seminars for students and faculty, and aids networking and employment placement for Woke sympathetic educators. (See Website for NDPI) LINK In fact, the founder of NDPI, Rodney Glasgow, is also a founding member of the NAIS’s SDLC. Likewise, 7 of the 8 faculty members of the NDPI are also faculty members of the NAIS’ PoCC or SDLC.
In the presentation President Harms: Explains that LH is adopting the yellow level of inclusiveness; “The Culturally Competent School Community (Pro Action)”. However, there is nothing in LH’s DEI rollout to distinguish from the next (green) level “Equitable/Inclusive School Community Forward Action”. Both levels use Woke cross over words and concepts (See Understanding Woke like “diversity”, “inclusivity”, “equity”, “cultural competency”, “identities”, “lived experiences”, “allyship”, “systems of power” and the “co-construction of knowledge and meaning”) LINK
According to the level adopted by LH: commitment and knowledge to the Woke worldview is a “job expectation for all employees and an expectation for all students”; both the board and president must incorporate Woke “strategically as they consider long term planning for the school”; “policies and/or practices…reflect a comprehensive and systematic understanding [of the Woke worldview]”; “curriculum fosters an understanding of systems of power…”; “students are invited to actively engage with teachers in a co-construction of knowledge and meaning.”; and the school must have a “designated practitioner whose job is to oversee the schools efforts with sufficient resources and is a part of senior administration.” (See Slide #7 Above)
Notice also, anything less than enthusiastic adoption of the Woke worldview is dismissed as “tokenizing”, “symbolic”, or “knee-jerk”. In fact, the absolute worst approach to inclusivity that a school can take according to this Woke metric of inclusivity is for the “Head of School and Board of Trustees…to maintain... the traditions of the school and ensure that any change does not present a challenge to the schools…values, and foundational mission statement.” (See Brown level). Is there any other proof needed to show that LH leadership is radically transforming LH and going woke?
During the January 4, 2021, meeting President Harms also disclosed:
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That he had completed the DEI Training (See Slide # 11) which became mandatory for all LH faculty in the fall 2020. This training in “diversity” and “unconscious bias” is thru an organization called Everfi (Everfi.com) which “uses the unique experiences of relatable individuals to explore key concepts such as identity, power and privilege.” (See Understanding Woke) LINK
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That he intends to hire LH faculty and employees not based on merit, but group identity, as part of a broader marketing effort.
After the January 4th information dump, President Harms refused any more meetings with disgruntled parents against the direction of the school and refused requests to involve other members of LH leadership. He did answer some written questions. (See e-mail chain between LH parent President Harms dated 3-8-21) LINK Later in April, during the Q & A after the “State of the School” address via Zoom, President Harms censored all questions submitted regarding the above issues.
March 25th Letter to LHPS Alumni
President Harms on March 25, 2021, writes a letter to LH Alumni regarding the school's founding. In the letter, he insinuates by inaccurate and false references that the school was founded for racist purposes. (See March 25th letter from President Harms) LINK We believe that the basis of this letter was a bogus study, blatantly untrue, and done with the intention of creating the impression that LH was racist from the beginning so that LH could pursue their DEI agenda. In fact, the study they used was about the policies of Orlando Junior College (OJC) and Valencia Junior College NOT Lake Highland Preparatory School.
Lake Highland although mentioned was formed separately from OJC with new By-Laws and the mission of accommodating students all races, colors, and creeds. LH has NEVER been racist. (See e-mail from President Harms to LH Trustee) LINK (Download response from Trustee re: the study done by LH) LINK To see all documents associated with the bogus study copy this link onto your browser and hit your return button:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ty07up2bnzanboihu81n6/h?dl=0&rlkey=2fuyay3h36yd7nrwkndzg8fnm
A group of over 20 alumni, former Trustees including one alumni who was at LH when the school was founded, were upset and dumbfounded that this insulting letter using the Lake Highland Preparatory School letterhead would be sent out by LH. (See e-mail from Trustee) LINK Upon investigation, it was determined that the letter was approved by Chairman Deery Co-Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Ad-Hoc Committee of Board of Trustees and the other members of that committee. (See e-mails from Trustee's who were actively engaged in drafting the letter) LINK
LH 2022
In January 2022 according to faculty in the room, LH’s DEI Director issued 2 edicts. The first, a speech code, prohibits kindergarten teachers from referring to LH children as “boys and girls”, on the grounds that the phrase is not inclusive of potential non-binary kindergarteners. The second, prohibits the traditional “Hundred Days” dress up, where our youngest -on their 100th day of school- imagine themselves as 100 years old, and dress accordingly. This LH tradition is also not inclusive nor diverse, but an example of “age-ism”, since it stereotypes people based on their [old] age. According to eyewitnesses, the DEI director had no plans to notify LH parents that the “100 days” tradition is now verboten. Rather, it is simply forbidden going forward and LH parents will simply discover this next year when it isn’t celebrated. (See DEI Committee Members) LINK
Where does this end? It doesn't unless LHPS parents get involved in their children's education. (See How to Take Action) LINK
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