Dudley-Charlton School District Denies Teaching Critical Race Theory Despite Paying $5K For Grifting Equity Consultant From Idaho Who Says He’s Teaching CRT

 

Dudley-Charlton is one of the most conservative school districts in the state. After the Southwick-Tolland-Granville district the two towns had the highest percentage of Donald Trump voters in both 2016 and 2020. But even in communities like this critical race theory is rearing its ugly head, and the parents there are standing up against it.

It began when the district paid $5,000 to a man named Sheldon Eakins to teach mandatory diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism training to teachers as a direct result of the murder of George Floyd, which to this day has not been attributed as a racially motivated crime.

According to Eakins website he is an, “accomplished K-12 educator and administrator” who has “taught at the elementary, middle, and high school levels during his career in the states of Florida, Louisiana and in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands,” as well as serving “several years as a school principal in the states of Louisiana and Oregon.” He doesn’t specify what schools, or why he moved around so much, and his LinkedIn bio doesn’t mention any of those places.

According to his resume on LinkedIn he has never worked as a public school teacher anywhere after graduating from college in 2008. He received his Masters and PhD from the online school Capella University while working at an unknown location for the General Conference of 7th Day Adventists, where he allegedly was an English, Social Studies teacher, and principal simultaneously. From there he went to work at Idaho State, where he is from, serving as “associate director of educational talent search” for three years.

His resume and his bio both state that in 2018 he took a job working for the Shoshone-Bannock Regional School District in southeastern Idaho as their Director of Special Education.

“Currently, Dr. Eakins serves as the Director of Special Education at the Shoshone-Bannock School District in Fort Hall, ID.”

But on the district’s website it lists his position simply as “extended learning.” A refined search that from 2018-2021 does not bring up anything that lists him as the Director of Special Education, aside from websites in which he wrote his own bio.

During this time he also founded the Leading Equity Center and incorporated in Idaho as Leading Equity LLC.

His company effectively sells schools diversity trainings, and like many who work in the racism-industrial complex, business has been good for Sheldon Eakins as a result of the George Floyd killing. Companies his like his have been in high demand as businesses and public entities like schools look to “do something” to fix “systemic racism.” In reality it’s just a way for talentless grifters like Eakins to line their pockets by playing off white guilt.

Unfortunately for him Idaho is a red state so he can’t sell his grift there.

But Massachusetts is a fine place to make a living in his line of work, since he can work virtually.

According to his website Eakins’ trainings specialize in such topics as:

• White Fragility
• Three assumptions regarding Whiteness
• What we can teach our White students
• Defining privilege
• What are some examples of privilege?
• Check your privilege
• How privilege and implicit bias connect
• What privilege do I have as an educator?
• How might my privilege impact the way I serve students?
• How can I leverage my privilege to support and empower students?

He made an Instagram post announcing that his $5,000 contracted visit to Dudley-Charlton (which he spelt wrong despite having a PhD from online college) was to teach critical race theory.

Several teachers I spoke with were upset that they were subjected to this blatantly political propaganda from a man with almost no background in public education. They asked him questions about unifying children outside the prism of race, which Eakins shot down. To those who preach critical race theory the most important thing that defines us as human beings, especially students, is our race. He told teachers that if they were not actively teaching students how to be “anti-racist” in math class, then they had no business teaching. Imagine an experienced educator of 30 years being lectured on how to do their job by a man who hasn’t taught in the public schools ever.

For that reason most teachers during this training who had a problem with what they were being taught kept their thoughts to themselves. The live chat turned into a spectacle of white teachers (when I was teaching at Shepherd Hill there was not a single black teacher in 9 years) looking for positive affirmation by asking Sheldon Eakins what they could do to be better allies and anti-racist educators. This is what happens in a society where conformity is encouraged and rewarded, while free thinkers are silenced, censored, and de-platformed by labeling them bigots.

When parents discovered that this was happening they revolted at a June 23 School Committee meeting, alongside teachers and former administrators who spoke out against what Sheldon Eakins was doing in their district. You can watch the whole meeting and the very passionate parents who spoke out by clicking here. 

I know from experience that teachers often have to pay out of pocket for classroom expenses, but the district can afford to pay this race hustler from Idaho $5,000 so they can feel better about themselves and pat themselves on the back for being “anti-racist.” This whole thing is nothing more than taxpayer funded performative virtue signaling for white people to alleviate themselves of the guilt they felt from watching George Floyd die.

Assistant Superintendent Brian Ackerman still sent out this email on June 18, telling parents that the schools were not teaching critical race theory, despite the fact that Sheldon Eakins was advertising it as just that.

“We have not adopted CRT as part of our curricula.”

Yes you have. You’ve brainwashed teachers to brainwash students with it. Sheldon Eakins would agree.

The mere fact that the district formed an “equity committee” in response to a non-racially charged murder 1,500 miles form Massachusetts is the root of the problem. George Floyd’s killing has nothing to do with the business of the Dudley-Charlton public schools. Race relations were fine in the schools before and after the killing, but people like Sheldon Eakins have to make a living doing something, so the “equity committee” decided to pay $5,000 to Eakins to teach these seminars to teachers, and students are now meeting with employees of his Leading Equity Center.

Equity is the equality of outcomes, so if the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District is striving for that, it means that there will be no class ranks, no standardized testing, no grades, or anything else that could possibly result in students not ending at the same spot.

Sheldon Eakins social media accounts are filled with divisive, politically charged posts that judge human beings entirely on their phenotype, and blames racist police officers for society’s problems.

He states that teachers who are not “actively working to dismantle racism in their learning communities” make students feel unsafe.

So in pre-calculus it’s important for teachers to talk about the white privilege of being able to do math prior to teaching kids complicated topics.

He thinks that students should be able to “freely discuss social justice issues” in class.

So if you are a science teacher trying to get through a lesson it’s important that you stop doing that and open up your classroom to be a forum for discussions about systemic racism.

His previous workshops have explicitly stated that only racist people deny that they are racist.

The Equity Committee that hired him consists of some teachers, parents, the Assistant Superintendent, and one School Committee member who recently got elected by running unopposed – Jordan Willow Evans.

Jordan has been running for office in Charlton for 10 years, previously running as Joshua Evans when she was a man.

Jordan is a Shepherd Hill graduate who does not hide that his support for CRT on social media.

He wrongly stated that we need CRT because schools don’t teach about the Trail of Tears.

As a former history teacher in this district I can assure you that the Trail of Tears is covered thoroughly during the Jacksonian era.

Proponents of CRT always claim that they just want to teach “real history.” But the fact of the matter is that real history is already being taught. What they really want to do is turn history, math, science, and english into social justice classes where teachers train students to obsess about their own racial and gender identities.

As Jordan pointed out to a concerned parent, the Equity Committee is not elected and has no oversight from parents.

Additionally a School Committee member should not be working alongside the Assistant Superintendent since one hires the other. Keep in mind, this district chose its administrators by consulting with the race-obsessed face of white privilege from West Tatnuck Worcester, Tracy Novick.

Parents in this school district are not taking this lying down, and neither should you. Become active, show up to meetings, run for office, and loudly demand that your students not be indoctrinated with CRT on your dime. The Mass GOP should be allocating resources to this fight, but instead Vice Chairman Tom Mountain is calling 14 year old girls “sexy” on Facebook and posting Biden memes while claiming to be hacked, so he’s a little bit busy.

So you’ll have to fight it on your own.

 

Hello Turtle Riders. As you know if you follow Turtleboy we are constantly getting censored and banned by Facebook for what are clearly not violations of their terms of service. Twitter has done the same, and trolls mass reported our blog to Google AdSense thousands of times, leading to demonitization. If you like what we do and want to support free speech feel free to hit the donation button. Or just buy this award winning book about the dangers of censorship and rise of Turtleboy: