Local conflict

During 2021, conversations about how history should be taught popped up across the state. Ranging from parents to lawmakers, different groups voiced their desire to change certain parts of how kids learn history.

Locally, Southlake Carroll ISD has been at the center of multiple racial controversies regarding diversity training programs and a recent comment by administrator Gina Peddy.

“Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” Peddy said. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”

The comment was later denounced by superintendent Lane Ledbetter who said that the district “did not recognize two sides of the Holocaust.”

Around the same time, Carroll’s diversity committee was disbanded.

The committee was first made in 2018 and had a total of 63 community volunteers. In response to the national Black Lives Matter movement, the school proposed the Cultural Competency Action Plan (CCAP) which included cultural sensitivity training, a process to document discriminatory incidents and have a Director of Equity and Inclusion, similar to LISD. Most parents did not support the proposal because they felt it was reverse racism.

After a parent lawsuit in late 2020, the plan was blocked. Then a PAC made up of parents fundraised for three board members, who did not support the diversity committee. As a result the committee has been disbanded and CCAP has been rejected.