Education board postpones meeting to hear new rules on eradicating 'divisive concepts'

Morgan Matzen, Sioux Falls Argus Leader
·3 min read
The South Dakota Board of Education Standards meets Monday morning, Nov. 15, 2021 at Carnegie Town Hall. From left to right: board member Julie Westra, board member Phyllis Heineman, senior secretary Ferne Haddock, board president Jacqueline Sly, Secretary of Education Tiffany Sanderson, board vice president Becky Guffin, board member Terry Nebelsick and board member Linda Olsen. Board member Steve Willard is not pictured, as he joined via Zoom.

The Department of Education announced Friday a meeting of the Board of Education Standards that was originally set for Monday is now postponed.

A new meeting date will be announced soon, according to the DOE. The meeting is postponed to "review comments that have been submitted."

Monday's meeting was going to include a public hearing to consider the adoption and amendment of proposed rules that would prohibit the adoption of content standards that promote inherently divisive concepts.

Those rules are intended to comply with Gov. Kristi Noem's Executive Order 2022-02, which she ordered after a bill that would’ve barred "divisive concepts" in K-12 education was shot down in the legislative session in the spring. A similar bill passed for higher education.

More: Education board will weigh rules prohibiting 'inherently divisive concepts' in schools

The proposed rules state establishing and revising academic content standards is the work of the Department of Education, BOES and “other state government agencies,” and that the BOES “shall not mandate curriculum or instructional materials.”

Academic content standards promoting “inherently divisive concepts” as listed in Noem’s executive order shall not be adopted to direct or compel students or educators to personally affirm, adopt or adhere to those concepts as defined.

Here are the divisive concepts listed:

  • that one race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin is inherently superior to another race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin;

  • that an individual should be discriminated against or adversely treated solely or partly on the basis of his or her race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin;

  • that an individual’s moral character is inherently determined by his or her race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin;

  • that an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously;

  • that an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, is responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin; or,

  • that meritocracy or traits, such as strong work ethic, are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race or sex to oppress members of another race or sex.

The Argus Leader is requesting copies of all public comments filed to the BOES thus far on the proposed rules. The deadline for those comments to be submitted by members of the public was Wednesday.

Hundreds of public comments have flooded the BOES in the past, specifically in 2021 when it was announced that the DOE had removed more than a dozen references to the Oceti Sakowin from a draft of social studies standards created by a workgroup tasked with retooling the standards before it was released to the public.

More: South Dakota DOE removed Indigenous topics from social studies standards before final draft

Nearly 600 public comments had been submitted to the BOES last September as the DOE had prepared to hold its first hearing on the standards when it decided to move to a larger venue than initially expected.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: South Dakota Board of Education Standards postpones meeting