Louisiana Save Our Schools SOS

Essential Areas To Make Comment On

Elements that are objectionable

1.The entire standard must be completely rid of all linkage to ideological and political movements.

The previous standard acknowledges the fact that the ELDS will be used to guide professional development for early childhood providers, as well as boldly stating that it will align with assessment tools. Since the implementation of this standard, the public has become aware of the promotion of anti-American and ideological elements associated with social emotional learning. Any language which directs the Louisiana Department of Education or individual childcare providers to this objectionable material must be removed.

Specific Changes

Domain- Approaches to Learning

Sub-Domain-Approaches to Learning: Initiative and Curiosity.

Standard 1

Children engage in multiple and varied play-based experiences.

Age-Range

Under Young Toddlers- add "developmentally appropriate" to "Express choices and preferences"

Under Older Toddlers- add "developmentally appropriate" to "Insist on preferences and express dislikes"

Under Four Year Olds- add "developmentally appropriate" to "Seek (add) information and contribute to discussions about a variety of (add) new topics, ideas, and activities"

Domain- Social Emotional Development- Rename this Domain to " Learning about self and others" or similar.

Sub-Domain- remove "Social Emotional Development" leave in place "Relationships with Adults"

Standard 1

remove and replace "positive" with "safe and appropriate"

"Children engage in and maintain positive (remove and add) relationships with adults. "

Age-Range

Three Year Olds- add "Physically" to "(add) Separate from trusted adults when in familiar settings"

Four Year Olds- add "Physically" to "(add) Separate from trusted adults when in familiar settings"

Sub-Domain- remove "Social Emotional Development" leave in place "Relationships with Children."

Standard 2

remove and replace "positive" with "safe and appropriate"

"Children engage in and maintain positive (remove and add) relationships with with other children. "

Age-Range

Older Toddlers- add "safe and appropriate" to "Seek assistance from (add) adults to resolve conflicts with other children."

Three Year Olds- remove "prosocial" and add "positive and appropriate" to "Demonstrate prosocial (remove and add) behaviors (eg taking turns, sharing) when playing with other children with some prompting from adults."

Four Year Olds- remove "prosocial" and add "positive and appropriate" to "Demonstrate prosocial (remove and add) behaviors (eg taking turns, sharing) when playing with other children with few reminders"

Sub-Domain- remove "Social Emotional Development" leave in place "Self-Confidence"

Age-Range

Three Year Olds-add "developmentally appropriate" to "Express (add) likes and dislikes and make choices based on (add)personal preferences."

Sub-Domain- remove "Social Emotional Development-Emotion Regulation" (add) "Knowledge of Emotions"

Age-Range

Older Toddlers- remove "Imitate strategies to manage emotions and behavior with adult direction."

Three Year Olds- remove "Use a variety of strategies (e.g., deep breathing; use of words) to manage emotions and behavior with adult support. Replace with "Imitate strategies to manage emotions and behavior with adult direction."

Four Year Olds- remove "Mange emotions and behavior with occasional verbal visual and/or auditory reminders" and replace with "use (developmentally appropriate) strategies to manage emotions and behavior with adult support and occasional reminders."

Sub-Domain- Culture Awareness. remove "Culture Awareness" add "People Family and Community"

Age-Range

Three Year Olds - remove "and cultures" add "community"

Four Year Olds -remove "and traditions" from Describe familiar elements of one's family, community, and traditions"

remove "Distinguish the distinct characteristics of groups of people and cultures" (entire box)

What is happening?

Elements that are objectionable

1. Social Emotional Development – the process through which children acquire the capacity to understand, experience, express, and manage emotions and to develop meaningful relationships with others.

This is directly in-line with the language used, fairly universally, by SEL/ CASEL. This form of programing has become embedded with an a focus on training children to think a certain way, to view themselves from a very young age as participants in a social justice movement and also to place priority on a collective vs individualistic viewpoint. It is thus very partisan.

This type of SEL alignment is concerning because of the broad support CASEL provides for anti-racist, culturally responsive, and gender identity type approaches.

While we are sure that most members of the ECCE do not wish to create such alignment, it is extremely important to not increase the push to do so. By mimicking the language in the standard this will happen.

We urge that the section with Social and Emotional Development should be reconsidered- both the name and the language reflects SEL and should not be mimicked in any way in our standard.

Under Chapter 5- Cognitive Development and General Knowledge-505 Social Studies has Part B. Cultural Awareness. The developmental milestones- especially in the Three Year Olds (36-48 months) and the next column Four Year Olds (48-60 months) have repeated tasks of identify and/or ask about the distinct characteristics of people and culture.

We suggest removing the references to culture entirely and leaving the focus People Family and Community. Cultural Awareness is unnecessary, and problematic given the materials to support this tend to get into Critical Social Justice and CRT pedagogy ..self, family, and community should be completely adequate.

The need to remove these terms is further reinforced by the reference on Page 8 of the July 13, 2022, Early Childhood Care and Education Advisory Council.

The slide says, “Louisiana’s vision is that all children enter kindergarten ready for success in school and beyond. In order to reach this goal, every day all children , from infants through age five, need educators and caregivers that…are culturally -responsive, and inclusive of children’s individualized needs. “

Our response- in order to ensure school readiness, culturally-responsive training should not be included. This is not the way to determine high quality results. Culturally-Responsive is going to align professional development training with extremely CRT leaning companies. This is absolutely not where Louisiana should be headed. Just because the language is not Critical Race Theory specific does not mean that it does not absolutely reflect those principles.

We would like to see the Department and the Council not refer to language that will drive curriculum and professional development ideologically. We believe the above areas should be removed.