A lesson that was supposed to be about insects went so far off the rails in a local science class that a 6th grader felt the need to secretly record it. The school has since hesitated to share information about it with the girl’s parents, despite a new parental rights law mandating they do so.
In May, Jake McCullough says her twin 6th graders were in science class at the Olympia Regional Learning Academy, an extension of the Olympia Public School District. Without advanced warning to parents, the instructor allowed another teacher to stop by and give a presentation about a project to make a quilt showcasing different types of bugs and plants.
Sounds innocent enough, right?
Except the presentation included a slide show titled “History of Quilts for Awareness and Activism,” which focused on social-justice themed quilts. Jake’s daughter started to record on her phone around the time President Ronald Reagan was brought up. The teacher, Karina Champion, was showing the kids a picture of a massive quilt depicting people who died from AIDS.
Because this disease was primarily affecting gay people and he (Reagan) was homophobic, he chose to stop any funding to go toward trying to solve this disease and people were dying in huge numbers because of his homophobia. Now we have medications that we can take that prevent you from even getting HIV. We have medicines that help you care for your body if you do get HIV – to the point where now the virus isn’t even able to be found in your blood because it’s at such a low level that you can’t even infect other people with it. And now this quilt has 50,000 panels of people who were killed by this virus.
Champion then moved on to a racial justice quilt while the actual teacher of the class left the room.
This is a more recent one. Does anybody know who Trayvon Martin is? No? So, Trayvon Martin was a kid who was a little bit older than you. He was 13 years old. He went to go walk to the corner store and got some Skittles and an iced tea for his brother. On his way home, a white supremacist was following him in his truck and yelling at him and then got out and killed him. The person who killed him did not go to jail, was not charged, because of a racist law that’s currently in Florida that allows people to kill someone else if they are scared. And how this law is generally applied, is by white supremacists who say they were scared just by the presence of a black or brown person.
“Just because they’re different,” a child can be heard saying in the background.
So, this quilt was made in protest of that event and the reason it says ‘Rest in Power Trayvon Martin’ is because of the lack of judicial support in this event. People organized to create what is now the Black Lives Matter movement to get laws changed so that people who are black and brown have the same protections as people who are white which is what our country is supposed to stand for. Justice for all.
Let’s put aside the clear factual inaccuracies in her retelling of the Trayvon Martin case for just a moment. We’ll detail those later.
Champion went on to refocus her presentation on the quilt the students would actually be helping to make – one showing different types of bugs and plants.
So, our issue is obviously not as profound and intense of an issue as some of these, but it’s still something that’s really important to the 7th and 8th graders, and it’s going to be a big project that you have an opportunity to work on as you’re moving up to 7th grade.
McCullough said the diatribe made her daughter “extremely uncomfortable,” which is why she pulled out her phone and recorded it.
You can listen to the recording here.
“The twins came to us and said can we talk about something? That’s when we were made aware there was a recording. The very next day I was present at the school asking to speak to the principal."
After informing the school that the lesson had been recorded, McCullough asked for a formal meeting. She wanted to know whether the lesson was approved, and requested to review curriculum for the class, including any supplemental material. She made the request on June 6, the day a new parental rights law – passed via Initiative 2081 – went into effect. It mandates that parents have the right to review learning material, among other protections.
“Using I-2081, I requested the curriculum, but they withheld the slides from me,” McCullough said. “I still don’t have the slides.”
McCullough claims the school would not provide her with the slides that were shown in class until 5 minutes before her meeting with the district. She was only allowed to view them on a computer screen and said the district still hasn’t given her a copy of what was shown in class. Although not from the presentation itself, McCullough did an internet search and found a picture of the same Trayvon Martin quilt the students were shown.
The school seemed to have little knowledge about I-2081, she said, and did not seem eager to provide access to supplemental learning material – which can include non-approved lessons crafted by teachers as they see fit.
“What I’ve found out through this process is supplemental material doesn’t go through a core curriculum standards committee review. So, what it allows for is teachers to put things together and push the envelope and their agenda,” McCullough said in an interview on unDivided. “(And) we were basically told that on issues of social justice they have been informed through OSPI that they won’t give notifications and they won’t follow opt-out guidelines.”
unDivided has reached out to the Olympia School District, Karina Champion, and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction for comment on this story.
In an email response sent Thursday afternoon, Katy Payne, a spokesperson for Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal, ignored questions about what happened in Olympia. She did, however, clarify accusations that the state is trying to get around the new parental rights law. Reykdal came under scrutiny earlier this month when he directed districts to take steps to maintain certain aspects of student privacy.
Despite how some folks are miscommunicating the direction we provided, what we’ve said is that this new state law conflicts with federal privacy laws, and state law cannot override federal law. Until these conflicts are clarified, we have asked school districts not to make changes to any policies or procedures related to student privacy. Last Friday, June 21, a judge in King County ordered a preliminary injunction regarding I-2081 related to students’ medical, health, and mental health confidentiality as well as the amount of time in which school districts must provide requested records to parents and guardians. Specifically, the order ceases all implementation and enforcement of the portions of I-2081 related to (1) disclosures of medical, health, and mental health records protected by RCW 70.02.020, and (2) the requirement to release records within 10 days rather than 45 days as required by federal law.
Despite the ongoing legal effort to block aspects of I-2081, it’s still not clear why the Olympia School District won’t provide Jake McCullough with copies of the lesson taught to her kids.
While she said the school acknowledged that the teacher violated several policies and would be disciplined, administrators would not say what that discipline was. They did, however, tell McCullough that Champion would return to teach at the district in the fall.
“She was lying and manipulating and giving false information and labels to children,” McCullough said, alluding to the teacher’s false statements about the Trayvon Martin case. Champion said he was 13. He was actually 17. Champion said his killer was never arrested or charged. George Zimmerman was tried and acquitted of murder.
“She did not have to come in and apologize to the students whatsoever. The assistant principal came in and glossed over the misinformation.”
The ordeal is particularly frustrating for McCullough, who homeschools her twins most of the time. As they get older, and the learning material gets more complex, she sends them to OSD for a few select courses. She said she is careful only to place them with teachers who have a good reputation – which is why she didn’t select any classes taught by Champion, who is known among parents to insert her personal opinions in the classroom.
The Olympia Regional Learning Academy is no stranger to controversy. In 2019, a teacher brought a dildo to class to teach a sex ed lesson. Not only was the dildo clearly not part of approved curriculum, but parents even been told that sex ed lessons were starting.
Elsewhere in the Olympia School District, unDivided has documented numerous examples of social and political bias seeping into classrooms and parents being kept in the dark. In 2023, unDivided highlighted the case of an Olympia school teacher who struck up a secretive dialogue with a 10-year-old transgender student. The ordeal was so troubling for the child’s parents, they moved their family out of the country.
McCullough said this is the first time she’s ever felt compelled to speak out publicly about something her children were taught in school and offered advice to other parents who are frustrated.
“More of us are going to have to look at curriculum, we’re going to have to make them accountable,” she said. “This wasn’t easy for us to come forward. I hope we inspire some other parents to come forward and say, ‘you’re not the only one.’ And it helps make (schools) accountable for the steps they need to do with 2081 and providing content to parents.
“We are the end all be all overseers of our children's education.”
You can watch our full interview with McCullough here.
