Researchers surveyed 467 schools and found funds for learning improvements were diverted to security, PR and attorneys in wake of targeting
Illustration: Angelica Alzona/Guardian Design; Source images by PM Images/PrasongTakham via Getty Images
campaigns. Those costs included everything from out-of-pocket payments to hire to lawyers or additional security, to the staff member hours devoted to responding to disinformation on social media, addressing parent concerns and replying to voluminous public records requests focused on the district’s teachings on racism, gender and sexuality.
A southern school district consumed by debates over critical race theory and book bans started to require that community members go through a metal detector in order to attend school board meetings, and spent “several hundred thousand dollars for additional security personnel, communications professionals and attorneys”, its superintendent estimated.
The largest portion of that money came from the “turnover costs” of replacing staff members who left their jobs or retired early because of personal attacks or the broader demoralizing school climate, they said. The money school districts had to spend on responding to political attacks was “meaningfully impacting the quality of education students received”, the report concluded.
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