Loudoun County to discuss best practices when teaching controversial, sensitive topics

Teaching controversial and sensitive topics in schools

How should schools teach controversial and sensitive issues to students? Loudoun County, which has seen its share of controversy over the past several months, is tackling that question Monday night.

LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. (FOX 5 DC) - How should schools teach controversial and sensitive issues to students? Loudoun County, which has seen its share of controversy over the past several months, is tackling that question Monday night.

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The Loudoun County School Board's Curriculum and Instruction Committee is meeting to discuss teaching about sensitive topics with the goal of developing policies in alignment with the state’s school boards association and to provide staff and students support.

The current policy states that while slurs may appear in written form in some educational materials, teachers will never be permitted to read passages containing any slurs out loud nor will they be allowed to omit any slurs and try to use a replacement word or phrase.

Students would never be asked to say any slur out loud, according to the policy.

The meeting comes amid ongoing litigation concerning teachers addressing students using the students' pronoun of choice and controversy surrounding teaching critical race theory.

These topics have stirred emotion, often anger, at school board meetings in months past, prompting barriers outside the headquarters and increased security inside for Monday night's meeting.

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FOX 5 has been told the policies developed will be posted on the school district’s website for two weeks for community input.
That community input will then reportedly be incorporated and presented to the Curriculum and Instruction Committee on Dec. 14th.