Irvine Unified’s ‘Continuous Improvement Council’: A Social Engineering Experiment

The offices of Irvine Unified School District in Irvine, Calif., on Sept. 8, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Commentary

The Irvine Unified School District (IUSD) in Orange County, Calif., has a plethora of advisory committees devoted to advising the board and administration on a wide variety of matters. Intertwined with all these committees is the “Continuous Improvement Council” charged with oversight of the district’s “Continuous Improvement Efforts.”

This Council has been in place for decades and upon its initial founding was referred to as the “Curriculum Council.” It meets three times throughout each academic year, and its most recent meeting took place on Jan. 26 at Creekside Learning Center.

After having served on the Council for the past 15 months, I was looking forward to the meeting on the 26th but never got the opportunity to attend—due to being notified via email on Jan. 20 that I was being removed from the Council. The reason cited was: “Our Council is comprised of IUSD educators, students, and parents, and now that [your child] is no longer enrolled in IUSD, we will be offering the opportunity to serve on the Council to another IUSD parent.”

What the district failed to realize is that my removal notification came after I had already obtained the emails from the Council Coordinator which included the pre-work and planned discussion points for the meeting. While I’m not able to comment on what transpired on the 26th, I feel it important to bring awareness to the planned discussion and the Council’s evolving social justice agenda.

I have watched this Council morph from something with good intentions into a social engineering experiment on a quest to tear down conventional and widely accepted social norms, establish new ones in their place, and coerce all community members into compliance with these newly established social norms. Of further concern is this Council’s desire to set a precedent that can be adopted by school districts throughout the state and potentially across the nation.

An email sent out to Continuous Improvement Council members on Jan. 17 stated the Council would be discussing an article during the meeting on the 26th entitled “Trading Baby Steps for Big Equity Leaps” and would be grappling with whether IUSD has gone far enough with its diversity, equity, and inclusion goals or whether more aggressive efforts may be in order.

The email was sent on behalf of the Assistant Superintendent of Education Services for Irvine Unified School District, who serves as the head of the Continuous Improvement Council. This email set the stage for the anticipated discussion at the meeting by implying the aforementioned article “may evoke some emotion and discomfort, [but] the ideas within it are worthy of our attention and contemplation.”

The theme of the article (which fails to define equity) is that “transformative equity” can be attained by districts and schools when:

1. Equity is a part of every conversation;
2. Equity aspirations are aligned with “specific actions and outcomes”;
3. Equity is incorporated into all aspects of the district and school culture and operating practices;
4. Employees are compensated based on equity efforts, and the hiring of employees is based on an equity mindset.

It’s implied that cautious incremental steps towards equity should be abandoned and replaced with the above leaps. The email set the expectation of having “open, respectful and productive conversations” surrounding the topics addressed in the article. It’s worth noting the leader has shaped the path of the Council for more than 14 years and most recently leveraged the May 2020 George Floyd travesty as a means for ushering in a radical agenda.

During my time spent serving on the Continuous Improvement Council (from Aug. 2021 to Jan. 2023), I observed it to be an eco-chamber for social justice activists. An Aug. 22, 2022 public records request revealed that of the more than 70 stakeholders who served on the Council during the 2021-2022 academic year, only four were non-IUSD staff. Of the four, two were parents serving on the Irvine Unified Council PTA at the time and played a key role in introducing and championing the Justice-Equity-Diversity-Inclusion initiative (JEDI) amongst Council PTA members, PTA chapters throughout the district, and the community. The remainder were IUSD Administrators, teachers and staff fully on board with the equity-based agenda that directs its full attention towards improving conditions for marginalized groups but fails to publicly define “marginalized groups.”

I was often the lone dissenting voice questioning any need for woke pedagogy and advocating for a sensible and data driven approach to implementing changes. Other causes for concern are the lack of transparency, minimal oversight, and lack of public awareness about the influence this Council has over seemingly all district matters.

Not only are the frameworks used to promote the explicit focus on social justice ideological in nature (taken straight from the Learning for Justice organization—an arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center), this Council is largely responsible for ensuring IUSD is:

• promoting the use of preferred pronouns,
• making gender support plans available,
• allowing pride flags to be displayed in classrooms and throughout campuses,
• making extra levels of support available for the LGBT community,
• shifting away from gender specific titles to more inclusive titles at school activities and events (ie: eliminating king and queen titles from homecoming),
• creating equity leadership teams at each school site,
• publishing regular newsletters for each “marginalized” group, and more.

Because the Continuous Improvement Council operates as a Council and not a committee (an important nuance), it is not subject to provisions of the Brown Act.

While I do see where good can come from this Council through efforts that emphasize broadening our understanding of student needs so that we can better meet those needs, as well as repeat reminders that we want all students to have the best possible educational experience envisioned, I am concerned with where this Council is headed.

Over the past three years it has lost its way, abandoning the essence of what it was created to do in favor of taking on an activist role. This Council would better serve the IUSD community by reverting back to its original founding principles and giving attention to the expressed areas of need as indicated per annual survey feedback and other forms of feedback received from the community.

Survey feedback indicates we need a better understanding of:

1. Why our students are feeling hopeless,
2. Why our students are experiencing high levels of stress and anxiety while at school,
3. Why our students aren’t feeling comfortable sharing their ideas and participating in classroom discussions.

What Annual Survey results reveal, from the past two years, is that teachers, parents, and students feel IUSD already does an effective job supporting students from diverse backgrounds. Shifting the Council’s pendulum back towards implementing evidence-based solutions to actual identified problems is the key to giving ALL students the ability to achieve their academic potential.

Furthermore, I recommend more parents from elementary, middle and high school aged students be invited to partake in this Council. Lastly, I recommend that the board play a more active role in oversight beyond merely rubber stamping the Council’s efforts annually at the July board meeting.

The board owes the community more transparency and opportunity for public debate on the Continuous Improvement Council’s efforts and agenda. We are living through a time where full transparency from elected and appointed officials is quintessential to building and earning the trust of the constituents. This is a golden opportunity for IUSD to deliver.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.