These changes come as the District grapples with an $11.5 million budget shortfall and seek to save approximately $537,000.
Last week, the District voted to eliminate band and strings classes for fourth-grade students. During the meeting where the cuts were discussed, School Board Director Scott Clifthorne acknowledged that research had demonstrated the benefits of music classes for young minds.
However, he argued that these classes were disproportionately distributed across the District's elementary schools. Consequently, students at some campuses must miss core instruction to attend music classes, while other schools provide extended instrumental class time.
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April 27, 2023
Clifthorne added, "We also know that there are other folks in the community that experience things like a tradition of excellence as exclusionary. We're a school district that lives in and is entrenched in and is surrounded by white supremacy culture. And that's a real thing."
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He clarified that there was nothing inherently white supremacist about string or instrumental music. However, he cautioned that it could contribute to the racist culture. "The ways in which it is and the ways in which all of our institutions — not just schools, but local government, state government, our churches, our neighborhoods — inculcate and allow white supremacy culture to continue to be propagated and cause significant institutional violence are things that we have to think about carefully as a community."
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A spokesperson for the District informed The New York Post that the cuts would only apply to music elective students who could opt into the lessons in addition to their general classes. The spokesperson assured these cuts would not affect secondary music offerings, elementary music, and fifth-grade band and strings.
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However, some parents have expressed frustration with the decision, describing it as "par for the course" for the public school board. The board had previously permitted one of its elementary schools to ban white students from a "safe space" club.
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The Olympia School District, like many others across the state, is experiencing a decline in enrollment. Recently, the board appointed Talauna Reed, a Black Lives Matter advocate and Antifa ally, to fill a vacant director position.
April 27, 2023
Reed made headlines in July 2021 when she declared "f*** the police" at a rally in Olympia. She also told rally attendees, "It amazes me how those pigs can sit over there to watch us peacefully talk about what we want [to] change in this state. It amazes me. And they don't pay attention until we tear s**t up. So, before I get started, tear everything up in this f**ing city until they do what we want them to do."
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Alesha Perkins, a mother of three in the District, told Fox News there was "no evidence whatsoever" that the fourth-grade music classes contributed to white supremacy. She added, "We have reached a level of absurdity in our school district, among our school board and our leadership that is just hard to ignore at this point."
The Olympia School District has yet to finalize its budget.
Earlier this month, The Post Millennial obtained radical curricula developed by Washington Ethnic Studies Now (WAESN), utilized in public schools in Washington state and sold across the U.S.
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These curricula teach music history to illustrate its connection to white supremacy and challenge mainstream curricula to disrupt the perpetuation of white supremacy.
In the music curriculum, notes are not taught; students learn how music was used for "power and oppression."
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