Last evening Great Hearts was made aware that one of our teachers at the Monte Vista North campus assigned homework that was very inappropriate and entirely inconsistent with Great Hearts philosophy and culture. In the 8th grade American History class students were asked to reflect on the differing sides of slavery. To be clear, there is no debate about slavery. It is immoral and a crime against humanity.
Our review of the situation found this incident to be limited to one t...eacher at just one campus. It was a clear mistake and we sincerely apologize for the insensitive nature of this offense. We want to thank the parents who voiced their concern and brought this to our attention. We are removing the textbook from all of our Texas academies. Please know Great Hearts is taking this seriously, including placing this teacher on leave while we have time to collect all the facts.
We will also conduct an audit of the American History textbook we’re using, Prentice Hall Classics: A History of the United States. If we deem this textbook imprudent we will permanently remove and replace it with a history book that accurately reflects our values.
Finally, the headmaster and teachers at the Monte Vista North campus will spend time with the impacted students to explain the mistake and engage them in lessons that are more thoughtful about this period of American History.
We fully intend to make sure something like this does not happen again and will keep parents posted as we address this issue further. We have scheduled a follow up communication on May 9, 2018.
In the meantime, we encourage anyone who has further questions or concerns to contact our Director of Communications Yvette Reyna 210-888-9475 ext. 3 or Yvette.Reyna @GreatHeartsTX.org.
Sincerely,
Aaron Kindel, Superintendent – Great Hearts Texas