Dupage Policy Journal

With a steady stream of parents turning out at a recent school board meeting to voice their opposition to Deep Equity training, St. Charles District 303 officials have announced the school will pause its Deep Equity training until after an equity audit is completed.

"Any company that buckets children and teachers into groups of oppressed and oppressors based on the color of their skin is wrong and quite frankly, it's racist," St. Charles parent Mitch Bridges told board members. "Cancel the contract with Deep Equity. Do an equity audit. Handle any equity issues on an individual basis and keep race out of it."

After board members narrowly approved a plan to move forward with Deep Equity training in March, all seven board members unanimously elected to pause the program following the most recent meeting. Created by California-based professional development program company Corwin, the program is designed to provide professional learning to staff on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Bridges also came armed with over 600 signatures from other parents who view the Deep Equity plan in the same way he does. Bridges also recently called into the Chicago's Morning Answer show where he told hosts “they need to know people are opposed to this. As I walked around, I didn’t hear one person say they were in favor of deep equity, but I heard a lot of people complaining about it and a good number of people who didn’t know about it.”

School board President Jillian Barker is still defending the program, insisting that the school is in need of equity training.

"Despite all the good intentions, inequity lives in good schools," she said. "It just does."