Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Williamson County’s District 4 GOP School Board candidate Elliott Franklin in-studio to discuss what he’ll do if elected to remove the toxic environment for members and teachers.
Leahy: We’re talking with Elliott Franklin, who is a candidate for the Williamson County School Board in the fourth district. Election Day is tomorrow.
He’s running in the Republican primary against incumbent Josh Brown. I guess are you the only two candidates in that primary? A couple of others on the Republican ballot?
Franklin: Yes. There’s one that’s running on the Democrat side.
Leahy: So we looked at, you’ve received endorsements from two groups that we like: Williamson Family PAC has endorsed you over Josh Brown, and the Tennessee Voters Guide.
Tennvoterguide.com. Our friend Craig Huey has recommended your candidacy as well. If you’re on the school board, there are 12 members of the school board.
Franklin: There are.
Leahy: What are you going to do?
Franklin: It certainly won’t be easy. You’ve got to obviously have seven votes to make anything to move forward. And I really think it starts out with …Â being in cybersecurity I understand that everything starts with a written policy.
And I’ve started digesting some of the hundreds of policies that Williamson County schools have. And certainly, that’s where the changes have to start in those policies.
You talk about the curriculum and the curriculum decisions and the waivers and such that the curriculum has been so divisive, especially the ELA curriculum, and the English language arts with Wit and Wisdom.
Leahy: Is Wit and Wisdom still being used? It’s very controversial.
Franklin: It is. It’s in its second of six years.
Leahy:Â I thought that was not supposed to be used as curriculum.
Franklin: And I would agree with you, but it is still being used.
Leahy: Didn’t the General Assembly pass a law that said the 14 tenets of Critical Race Theory could not be taught? And from what I’ve heard, some of those tenets are included in that Wit and Wisdom curriculum for kids age Kindergarten through 8th grade or something like that?
Franklin: That’s right. That’s correct. It is.
Leahy: So why is it still there?
Franklin: You will be told if you go to a school board meeting and ask to speak, you will be told that it’s not exactly that. That a law was passed and then there’s no CRT in there.
But yet we have teachers emailing us begging us to make changes in terms of us that are running because they know it’s wrong and it’s harmful.
They’re going home sick every day because they’re being forced to teach it. And we’ve also received emails from teachers who are not teaching it or trying to deviate from the Wit and Wisdom curriculum.
Leahy: The Wit and Wisdom curriculum, just a reminder, what grades does it cover? What are the kinds of things in it that would be violations of this law that says you can’t teach the tenets of Critical Race?
Franklin: That’s K through 8.
Leahy: Is it K through 8?
Franklin: Yes, for the English language arts. And again, it’s very divisive.
Leahy: What’s an example of divisiveness in this curriculum?
Franklin: Again, the teachers have to read from a manual. They’re not allowed … they have to read exactly from the teacher’s guide.
Leahy: What’s an example of that?
Franklin: Yes. In teaching, like pitting one race against another. So there’s a story with a police officer that’s following around a little child and the child’s black.
And so then the teacher has to call out a student in the class and say, how does that make you feel that the police officer is following around this child?
Leahy: This is in the curriculum.
Franklin: Right. Yes.
Leahy: So implying that the police officer is a white racist.
Franklin: Exactly. Yeah.
Leahy: Again, why isn’t the Williamson County Schools taking that out of the curriculum?
Franklin: I would like to know the same answer. And when you go to speak at these meetings, you’re not heard.
Leahy: So let’s say you get elected, you’re one of 12. The Superintendent of Schools, Scott Golden?
Franklin: Mr. Golden.
Leahy: He seems to me to be kind of arrogant and unresponsive. That’s my view, anyway. Telling you what to do, and not following the direction of the school board or having captured the school board. Let’s say I’m right. How do you as one of 12 members of the school board get them to change course?
Franklin: That’s one of the few things the school board does have control of. That’s the only employee the school board manages is the superintendent, along with policies and budget. And so you’ve got to be able to pass policies and give him the direction to hold him accountable.
Leahy: But he doesn’t seem to want to follow the directions of folks like you.
Franklin: So when you have the majority and you come up for a performance review, which happens in June of every year, then you show that in the performance.
Leahy: Have you had many conversations with Scott Golden?
Franklin: No. Outside of emails, no.
Leahy: What do you imagine? If you’re on the board, how will he interact with you?
Franklin: I’ve spoken to quite a few meetings, so I know he knows where I stand on things. And again, through emails. I look at it like an employee-employer relationship. I manage a team.
Leahy: But I don’t think he’s going to think you’re the employer.
Franklin: Well, you’re right.
Leahy: I mean, he’s going to think you’re nobody. You’ll be on the board, and you’re going to tell him “you can’t be teaching Wit and Wisdom” and he’s going to say go jump in the lake. So then what are you going to do?
Franklin: You’ve got to team with the other board members, so that you hopefully can move that direction. Because again, he is our employee.
Leahy: He doesn’t think so.
Franklin: Well, I don’t know necessarily that he doesn’t think so. I don’t think the current board is even trying to hold him accountable. And so they’re not pushing back on him. They’re just a yes board. They go with whatever he pushes down.
Leahy: How many seats are up this time?
Franklin: There are six.
Leahy: Six. Let’s say people who think like you have a clean sweep of it. It’s 6 to 6, right? Or would you have 7 to 5, or 8 to 4?
Franklin: It’s hard to say. That would be the goal, is that we would have at least six, if not seven, that would agree, and that would try to push these changes.
That’s what we’re trying to do, to hold them accountable. Toxic leadership starts at the top. And I think you see we have all the … over 90 teachers that have left this year. It is a very toxic environment there.
Leahy: Yeah, it became toxic. It looks like that. He’s an attorney. All his staff are attorneys. They seem to be threatening teachers all the time.
Franklin: Yes, and they’re not doing simple things like even exit interviews. So our teachers, when they’re leaving, they’re not asking them why they’re leaving. How can you improve a situation? Because they know why, and they don’t want to be held accountable.
Leahy: And why are they leaving?
Franklin: They’ll tell you it’s one of two things. It’s the salary, which they did just go through a small raise. But both my parents were school teachers. You know, you’re not doing it for the money, but you shouldn’t be in poverty.
And second is they don’t want to teach this, they don’t want to have to be forced to teach this curriculum. And so they’re leaving for pretty much those two reasons. And I’ve knocked on doors and talked to some of them, and that is why they’re leaving. They don’t want to teach the curriculum.
Leahy: Is it just the Wit and Wisdom curriculum or is there more? Is it everything?
Franklin: There’s more than just that, because they’re doing even waivers at this last board meeting. Even for coding classes. So you talk about computer coding. They asked for waivers for the curriculum.
Leahy: What do you mean waivers? What’s that mean?
Franklin: There are certain state curriculums that they can use, and then if they don’t want to use one of those they can submit a waiver to teach an alternative curriculum.
Leahy: And did the alternative include CRT-type stuff?
Franklin: I haven’t looked at the one for coding but I’m just kind of curious why. Why are you asking for a waiver for that?
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
