Texas Elementary School takes pride week with ‘confidential’ community circles

A Texas Elementary School is organizing a Pride Week for students, complete with planned programs of social-emotional learning to teach students about social justice.

The planned events for Pride Week for Doss Elementary School in Austin, Texas, have attracted attention online after the popular Twitter account Libs of Tik Tok highlighted the agenda for the week, which includes “community circles” where students were instructed to keep conversations confidential, an arrangement that some interpreted as intended to keep parents in the dark about what was being discussed.

A spokesman for the Austin Independent School District said Washington Examiner the circles were “confidential in the sense that students feel confident and respected when sharing in conversations” and that it should not be misinterpreted “not to tell your parents.”

“Circles are part of social emotional learning and are used for a variety of language topics such as test anxiety, world events, internal conflict resolution, social justice,” the spokesman said. “The interview template allows for a process and gives everyone an optional opportunity to speak. Everyone, not just the parents, has access to the material in advance. Every parent has the right to complete these activities.”

Other activities during Pride Week included a student pride parade, a video of which went viral on Monday.

Social-emotional learning has been criticized by conservative activists as Trojan horses for controversial ideas such as critical race theory, which states that US institutions and culture are systemically racist.

Defenders of social-emotional learning say the program is only meant to teach students how empathetic and understanding people from different backgrounds are.