ST. CHARLES COUNTY — The conservative majority on the Francis Howell School Board will revoke a resolution against racism adopted three years ago amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.
At its meeting Thursday, the board voted 5-2 to rescind all resolutions in the next 75 days if Ҡand remove them from school buildings and publications.
The anti-racism resolution, which would be taken down from school hallways, calls racism “a crisis that negatively impacts our students, our families, our community, and our staff.â€
“We will promote racial healing, especially for our Black and brown students and families. We will no longer be silent. We are committed to creating an equitable and anti-racist system that honors and elevates all, but one that also specifically acknowledges the challenges faced by our Black and brown students and families.â€
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Zebrina Looney, president of the St. Charles County branch of the NAACP, said the organization plans to pursue a civil rights complaint against the district.
The school district’s anti-racism resolution was passed in August 2020, two months after 2,000 protesters marched 3 miles down Mid Rivers Mall Drive in support of Black students following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The protesters called for changes to Francis Howell’s curriculum, hiring practices and discipline policies they said discriminated against people of color.
The five board members who voted to rescind the resolution were elected in April 2022 and April 2023 with the support of the Republican-backed political action committee Francis Howell Families.
In 2021, the committee described the anti-racism resolution as “woke activism†and drafted an alternative “against all acts of racial discrimination, including the act of promoting tenets of the racially-divisive Critical Race Theory, labels of white privilege, enforced equity of outcomes, identity politics, intersectionalism, and Marxism ... the Board hereby declares its commitment to establishing, supporting, and sustaining a culture of racial harmony and goodwill districtwide.â€
A majority of public speakers supported keeping the resolution.
“You are set to scrub our buildings of a resolution that made our Black and brown families feel seen and heard,†said Francis Howell teacher Raquel Babb.
Board member Jane Puszkar, who was elected in April, said Thursday that the resolution has “done nothing†to protect students from harm.
Two board members, Janet Stiglich and Chad Lange, were serving when the anti-racism resolution was approved in 2020. Both board members voted Thursday against rescinding the resolution.
The anti-racism resolution has given “our students and our community hope that we do recognize we have issues and we are doing our best to right them,†Stiglich said during the meeting.
Other resolutions now canceled under the policy include one from last year urging Missouri legislators to reject a bill from state Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, to phase out or eliminate personal property taxes, and another from 2017 urging legislators to reject statewide charter school expansion.