Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Education
 
Board
State Board of Education
 
Guidance Document Change: The 2020 Virginia General Assembly passed House Bill 753 directing the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) to develop guidance standards for social emotional learning (SEL) for all public students in grades Kindergarten through 12 in the Commonwealth. The Virginia Social Emotional Learning Standards were developed in collaboration with an SEL Advisory Committee, composed of educators, community leaders, agency personnel, and parents. The Virginia SEL Standards are aligned with the Profile of a Virginia Graduate and centered in equity. This intentional focus allows the Standards to explicitly teach the skills needed to be “life ready” and to create more equitable learning environments.
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5/5/21  8:38 pm
Commenter: Anonymous

Put the shoe on the other foot.
 

I am a parent. I am a Christian who unfortunately likely has no choice but to put his kid in a public school. Instead of calling this propaganda or telling you about the infringement on family life and liberty to raise a child as you see fit I will go another direction. 

 

Say government was full of people who believe as I do. That government decided that the emotional and social learning was important to children's integration into adult life. Nobody can argue that it is not. 

 

So, the state government came up with guidelines inexorably linked to my political and religiously tinged base biases that cannot be removed from these subjects. Would you be okay with your children being taught based on my base biases? Would it not then be an affront to your parental goals tantamount to religious propaganda? 

 

Eventually, these biases will be dismissed and a new collective paradigm will be embraced. Is it not then easier and wiser to let parents teach according to their own values? 

 

This is a bad idea and precedent and remember, it is likely your viewpoint will end up being not the cultural accepted norm. 

 

If this were a private school we could just go to a different school, that is not an option here. Don't repeat the mistakes of the past now that you feel the "right value system" is in power. You've become the thing the adherents to this value system fought against for decades. The caricature of the religious right in the eighties is becoming yours. 

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