Williamson County Schools
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Updated – January 9, 2025
Williamson County Schools held a special meeting to determine whether students should have restricted access to hypersexualized reading materials. On December 10, 2024, Fox Chattanooga reported:
“The Williams County School Board held a special meeting Monday night to decide the fate of five books some deemed controversial or inappropriate for children. The decision is necessary to comply with state law after the legislature passed a bill that says school systems need to review books like the ones called into question.”
The source listed the following five texts in question:
- “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foster—given an “Adult/Adult Fiction” rating by Goodreads
- “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky—given an “LGBT” and “Mental Health” rating by Goodreads
- “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens—given an “Adult” rating by Goodreads
- “The Field Guide to the North American Teenager” by Ben Philippe
- “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson—given a “Banned Books” and “Mental Health” rating by Goodreads
According to Fox Chattanooga, the Ben Philippe and Laure Halse Anderson novels are only available to high school-aged students while the other three books were removed from the district.
While searching the virtual library system at Vanguard High School, the School Board Watchlist discovered several sexualized texts are still available to high school students. The following is not an exhaustive list.
- “Gay Marriage” by Lauri S. Scherer
- “Gay America: Struggle for Equality” by Linas Alsenas
- “Frequently Asked Questions About Same-Sex Marriage and When a Parent is Gay” by Tracy Brown
- “Harvey Milk: Pioneering Gay Politician” by Corrine Grinapol
- “The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Other Identities” by David Levithan and Billy Merrell
A student in Williamson County Schools was arrested for possessing a firearm. On December 18, 2024, Williamson Scene reported, “A Fairview High School student was arrested on Frida, Dec. 13 after bringing a gun on a school bus…Few details have been publicly released, but a Williams County Sheriff’s Office [said] the student is a juvenile.”
This story is still developing.
In August, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that a family was suing the Williamson County Board of Education after their teenage son was falsely accused of threatening mass violence against the district. The source said the student “was a junior at Independent High School last year when he was handcuffed and arrested at school, strip-searched and put in solitary confinement in juvenile detention, then placed in an alternative school and referred for psychiatric care.”
The Free Press also said the student was accused of “raising his hand in a Hitler salute” in class but the principal found no witnesses to corroborate that incident. The family is seeking $300,000 in compensatory damages.
The School Board Watchlist will continue monitoring issues in Williamson County Schools.
Updated – July 15, 2022
On July 8, 2022, Parents’ Choice Tennessee (PCT), a local parent advocacy group, filed a lawsuit against Williamson County Schools for the implementation of the Wit & Wisdom curriculum, which teaches Critical Race Theory and Social Emotional Learning.
PCT claims that the schools’ adoption and implementation of the Wit & Wisdom curriculum violates a Tennessee law that was passed in May 2021, which banned elements of CRT from being taught in public schools. The lawsuit alleges:
“The language arts curriculum known as ‘Wit & Wisdom’ is replete with age-inappropriate materials which promote a skewed and a racist view of history and portrays one race as inherently superior to another, or inherently privileged and oppressive. The ‘Wit & Wisdom’ materials present age-inappropriate material that causes children guilt, anguish, and other forms of psychological harm, and discusses the United States as an irredeemably racist country.”
PCT founder Trisha Lucente and her husband James Lucente are named as plaintiffs in the suit. In a news release, Trisha Lucente stated:
“The curriculum was adopted through a process in violation of state law, and over objections of several parents and educators who raised serious concerns about the graphic, racist, and age-inappropriate nature of much of its content.”
PCT attorney, Larry Crain, announced in a release:
“The claims presented in this lawsuit raise serious constitutional concerns regarding the parental liberty rights of parents to direct and control the education and upbringing of their children. The school system has turned a deaf ear to these concerns, and this is what has prompted this action.”
According to The Tennessean, requests to remove Wit & Wisdom and dozens of formal requests to reconsider implementing it were aimed at the district. Reasons included the belief that the content is inappropriate for elementary school students and allegations that the curriculum includes teachings of Critical Race Theory and Social Emotional Learning.
The first official complaint was filed by a group known as Moms For Liberty in the summer of 2021. However, the Tennessee Department of Education declined to investigate the complaint.
Williamson County Schools previously denied that Wit & Wisdom materials contain these concepts, as has Great Minds, the company that creates the materials used.
Williamson County Schools and the Tennessee DOE have declined requests for comment regarding the lawsuit, saying both entities do not comment on ongoing litigation.
Published – October 13, 2021
Williamson County School Board has voted to extend their mask mandate throughout the district. The vote extends their mask mandate through January 2022. The mandate forces students and staff to wear masks, regardless of vaccination status. Governor Bill Lee signed a bill in August that allows parents to opt their children out of mask mandates, but the Williamson mask mandate does not allow for an opt-out option.
A Pfizer executive was appointed to the Williamson County School Board to fill a vacancy in October 2021 which raised the alarm for many parents in the district and the board’s ability to stay neutral regarding COVID mandates and vaccinations.
A mother who has children in WCS schools has gained national attention for calling out what the district is teaching kids about race. She believes that the reading materials and teachers’ manuals are biased, specifically the lessons taught to second graders about civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. Kids leave class believing that white people are oppressors and minorities are victims. She is a part of a group called “Mom’s for Liberty”, and they have forced the district to review their curriculum after an enormous amount of public discontent.
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Williamson County Schools has 42,171 enrolled in Pre-K through 12 across 51 schools.
